La Rose de Fer (1973)
(The Iron Rose)
Reviewed By-Sean Patrick Dolan
Director: Jean Rollin
Cast: Francoise Pascal, Hugues Quester
With La Rose de fer (THE IRON ROSE), Jean Rollin found himself at one of the many difficult and trying points of his entire career. Having just completed his first four films, the latest being Requiem pour un vampire (CAGED VIRGINS), the director had already made a genre of horror all his own, one which was appropriately dubbed "Rollinade". However, more often than not, this term was derogatory and was used with contempt and scorn by French critics. Jean-Marie Sabatier, referred to Rollin's work as "cheap films, full of the clichés of horror cinema and sprinkled with amateur eroticism . . . Elegantly made popular cinema, art for the masses" (Tombs, 151). Compounding this problem of a complete lack of respect from the horror community was the arrival of the '70's porn boom in Europe. At this point Rollin had already made two sex films, Jeunes filles impudiques (LEWD YOUNG GIRLS) and Tout le monde il en a deux (BACCHANALES SEXUELLES) under the alias Michel Gentil and, as it turned out, he would spend the rest of the decade making more of these films than he would horror. But first he decided to make a film very different from his existing body of work. This "art film" would revolve completely around a mood and a place but, unlike his earlier films, would not include the "distractions" of sex and vampires.
The result, 1973's La Rose de fer, is a darkly atmospheric tale of a young couple who go on a date and wander into a cemetery to have lunch. They spend the afternoon making love in an underground crypt and, upon emerging after dusk, become hopelessly lost amidst the intersecting paths of graves. As night deepens the couples' fear turns to panic and, ultimately, madness. Despite a marked difference in style from Rollin's earlier films, La Rose de fer has barely begun before the director begins to revisit locations and characters from his growing body of work, as well as introducing others that would continue to haunt his films throughout the rest of his career. The film opens with a lone woman, Francoise Pascal, walking down the beach from Le Viol du Vampire (RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE). She bends and picks from the surf a crystal rose, a traditional French funeral ornament that is a dominate symbol throughout the film. After the credits role, we find a group of young people at a dinner party, where Hugues Quester wins Pacal's affection by reciting a poem by Tristan Corbiere. The couple meet for their date at an abandoned train yard where there sits one lone old-fashioned locomotive, a locale revisited in slightly different forms in both Les Trottoirs des Bangkok (SIDEWALKS OF BANGKOK) and Les Deux Orphelines Vampires (TWO ORPHAN VAMPIRES). These disparate images flow together in a surprisingly logical sequence, a rare talent that Rollin possesses. They are followed by the film's central motif which figures so often in Rollin's films- the cemetery. The director favors this locale more for aesthetic purposes than its traditional morbid associations, as he reveals through Pascal's character- "Why are you so preoccupied with death in such a wonderful garden?" But even the most sacred of locations is not free from familiar faces from early Rollin films, as we see Requiem pour un vampire's "last vampire" and a woman in clown face walking the grounds.
Thematically, too, La Rose de fer is a preview of things to come. While nearly all of his films contain characters that are lost, his earlier heroines tried to escape their fate, as was the case in both Les Frisson des Vampires and Requiem pour un vampire. This film is the first time we see his characters begin to turn fatalistic and not only acknowledge their doomed status, but embrace it, as becomes the rule in the later films Les Raisins de la Mort (GRAPES OF DEATH) and La Morte vivante (LIVING DEAD GIRL).
As Pascal's character turns from fear to madness, she begins not to try to escape from the cemetery but to think of it as home, laying down on the graves and speaking of her friends below. The cemetery is a safe place, a marvelous garden, where they are safe from the world outside and no longer need fear "bad people". When her lover continues to try to negotiate their escape, she tricks him into entering the underground crypt and then locks him inside. A brief sequence is interposed here which finds Pascal's character dancing naked on the beach from Le Viol du vampire, Rollin's symbol for freedom, which she reinforces with a long and abstract soliloquy familiar to all Rollin fans. But the film does not end here this time, as it so often does. The film returns to the cemetery where she dances amidst the tombs and monuments, crosses and statuary until dawn. Now, when the cemetery is reopened and escape is all the more easy, she instead descends into the crypt with her lover. Before she closes the doors, she utters her last defiant words to the world above- "They're dead. We're alive!"
While this relatively short art film is as impressive, if not more so, than the handful of films that preceded it, Rollin "enjoyed" the typical hostile reaction from fans in his native France. Debuting at the 2nd Convention of Cinema Fantastique in Paris in April, 1973. While there are no reports of objects being thrown at the screen (as occurred at the premiere of Le Viol du vampire), many audience members walked out before the film had barely begun, and the press afterwards was terrible (Tombs, 152). As a result, Rollin suffered several dry years in which funding for films became increasingly hard to obtain. Of course, we all know that the director eventually bounced back and went on to direct many more excellent films. And though I may be risking a cliché, it is still true that to be unappreciated in one's own era is often a sign of greatness, if not genius.
I reviewed the Video Search of Miami DVD release of La Rose, which features a brief interview with Jean Rollin before the film.
This review was originally written for Enfant Terrible, the Official Jean Rollin Newsletter.
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