Cinema of Jean Rollin

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 3:56pm by manz

Fall is a good time of year to explore some darker films that make us think. Jean Rollin is a French film director, actor and novelist that helps us do just that. A slew of Rollin's French language films are now in the AADL catalog! What should you expect from his films?

Revered by enthusiasts of fantasy and horror films, but largely overlooked by the critical mainstream, French filmmaker Jean Rollin (1938-2010) is finally being given the recognition he deserves. His surreal, dreamlike films are grounded in traditional gothic imagery but are flavored with 1970s-era eroticism, resulting in a body of work that is as eerie as it is outrageous. Though constrained by low budgets, Rollin managed to drench his films in atmosphere and used them as unvarnished expressions of his own personal fears and desires. As Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog has written, Rollin’s films represent “the very heart and soul of ‘le fantastique’-”its flamboyance, its melodrama, its sense of the impossible made possible. They do not scare us; they were designed to delight us, to arouse our imagination, to move us.”

A sampling of our collection includes: The shiver of the vampires, Zombie lake, Two orphan vampires, The grapes of death, and many more to choose from.