The Escapees (1981)

 

Director: Jean Rollin

Screenplay: Jean Rollin and Jacques Ralf

Cast: Laurence Dubas as Michelle; Christiane Coppé as Marie; Marianne Valiot as Sophie; Patrick Perrot as Pierrot; Louise Dhour as Mme Louise

Canon Fodder

 

Canon Fodder are reviews of films by figures or movements which do not qualify for the Abstract Reviews but are important for figures connected to those reviews, or from directors/figures I hold with great regard. Here, we have a tangent in Jean Rollin's career.

While I have softened to this film, The Escapees is definitely a flawed film, something to still truly admire but definitely not one you would immediately recommend to enter the French auteur's filmography, requiring context first even if you are a huge admire of it. It stands out considerably as Rollin making a drama. Not a genre film, but a production, whilst it has some eroticism and the ending involves some gore, where Rollin is trying to create a film without fantasy or horror elements. It comes from the eighties, which was a very unconventional period for him. After a decade of his trademark erotic-fantastique-horror movies, those that were made in the early eighties at least varied wildly in genre. Cronenbergian sci-fi horror in The Night of the Hunted (1980); the film serial/pulp pastiche made on an incredibly low budget The Sidewalks of Bangkok (1984); and Zombie Lake (1981), an infamous production which Rollin stepped into for good credit, a production even Jess Franco who was not shy of extremely limited resources skipped out of in the first place. In the midst of this The Escapees is a drastic change of pace even from those films.

The Escapees in question are two eighties year old girls at a mental asylum. Michelle (Laurence Dubas) has only just been brought back in, immediately hating her confinements when she catches the attention of Marie (Christiane Coppé). Virtually catatonic, baring rocking in a chair, this wakes Marie up for the first time in a long while, encouraging her to free Michelle and leading to the two escaping together. Michelle is a more brazen character, happy with her new found freedom, wishing to be with a man and also live whatever way she wants to, whilst Marie virtually tags on like a child. Marie out of two is definitely the most complicated and interesting of the pair; a very shy nervous figure, she comes from a privileged background Michelle did not, as later dialogues reveals, someone more than likely a victim of sexual molestation which has left her with greater psychological damage. Almost childlike or at least hyper nervous, following Michelle along and reacting when Marie is with others negatively, acting negatively especially when she is touched, only in a scene where she finds an ice rink at night, actress Coppé clearly trained with some skill in ice skating, does she feel briefly comfortable in her own skin.

The Escapees' biggest issue to digest it is that, attempting a more conventional structure without necessarily more plot and over a hundred minutes is that it is glacial. Very methodical to an extreme melancholic tone with largely dialogue scenes, what does grow and leave it nonetheless one of his warmest films is however the sincerity. His admirations are on full display. He admires "the theatre of the street", a quote taken by from one of the first people they encounter, Maurice of Maurice and His Exotic Dancers, with two West Indian female dancers performing at wasteland areas, such as a junkyard near railways. He admires outsiders in general - Sophie the dockworker, wearing a leather coat and cap like many of her colleagues, who is also a thief, and the staff of a bar that take in Marie and Michelle eventually. The film, without the more surreal or erotic content does open up a lot of his trademarks, including the sense of empathy he had for outsiders.

It feels odd seeing Rollin strip back so much and make a dramatic narrative. It does show that, for a subdued film, Rollin's work in general was always subdued next to outside Euro-cult directors of his era. Muted colours, very little very dated, and all-matter-of-fact; Rollin also knew how to find distinct locations to films at, such as his obsession with nautical culture which leads to a lot of coastal and dock based locations which are striking. He could figure out how to use the most banal locations of France to his advantage; little surreal touches are the result of this, like in how the leads meets Maurice and His Exotic Dancers it involves encountering one of the women playing drums in the middle of the wasteland between motorways. Also, even as his most grounded film, he still manages to have a scene of the leads finding a book of legends, befitting Rollin and his obsession with pulp, here just stories and escape the aspect he pays tribute to.

As a result, the ending of The Escapees especially becomes one of his most tragic, all going sour when the yuppies appear, including Brigitte Lahaie, and an ill advised decision to join two men and their girlfriends back home transpires, where they will try to pressure Marie and Michelle into sex, and there are real firearms and weapons on the wall as one of the men's collection from abroad to become involved. This is, honestly, one of the Rollin's weaker films, due to it trying to carry his style to drama, which does feel awkward. It does lead to a shock when the film does reach its ending, because of the sudden increase in violence and nudity, but at the same time the ending by itself helps the film considerably. It takes what has transpired before and given it worth due to the sadness of the material, finally making the experience something meaningful and worthy of Jean Rollin's filmography.