Review: The Iron Rose (1973)

(aka La Rose de Fer)
Directed by: Jean Rollin
Starring: Françoise Pascal, Hugues Quester, Nathalie Perrey
Written by: Jean Rollin, Tristan Corbière, Maurice Lemaître
Music by: Pierre Raph
Country: France
Available on: Blu-ray/DVD (Redemption Films/Kino Lorber)
IMDb

The Iron Rose was Jean Rollin’s first step outside of vampire lore in his career, though his previous film, Requiem for a Vampire (1971), does provide sufficient warm-up for the artsy-fartsy detour of this one, which was mostly self-funded by Rollin knowing it wasn’t going to be a commercial success (and indeed it wasn’t, forcing him to work in pornography to fund future features). Though The Iron Rose has no bloodsuckers, and is easily one of the least erotic films of his “classic era” (though Rollin does manage to throw in some full-frontal nudity at the very end), it’s still got a lot of his signatures, including overcast, misty countryside; graveyards; beautiful, sullen women; symbolism abounds; and long stretches without dialogue. While very few of Rollin’s films depend much on plot, there is even less of that business here. The Iron Rose follows a couple on their first date who wander into a cemetery and get lost, eventually descending into madness and death. There aren’t a lot of actual events in the film, which is more of a gorgeous tone poem meditating on life and death, our treatment of the dead and their memory, and love. This is perhaps Rollin’s most breathtakingly shot film; it’s just an absolute beauty to behold. One of Rollin’s many talents is finding leading actresses from whom you absolutely can’t turn your eyes, and here, Françoise Pascal is brilliant as the woman — her subtle shifts from fear to calm to manic elation to acceptance are entrancing to watch and her screen presence drives the entire affair, even when its bare minimalist approach drags down the middle a bit. I found myself wishing there were a few more outside forces disrupting the somewhat repetitive interplay between Pascal and Hugues Quester, but the lull follows a completely engrossing first act, and is pretty short-lived before a virtuoso conclusion. If your tolerance for arthouse flourish is minimal, The Iron Rose is going to provide very little satisfaction and maybe even piss you off. But if you’re open to cinema that’s much more about arousing the senses than the brain, this is will strike you as a work of art. For me, it further fortified that Jean Rollin has become one of my favorite filmmakers of all time.

Overall rating: 9 out of 10