THE TWO ORPHAN VAMPIRES (1995)
(aka. "Les Deux orphelines vampires")
Starring: Alexandra Pic, Isabelle Teboul, Brigitte Lahaie, Tina Aumont, Michel Franck. Written and Directed by Jean Rollin. France. 90 minutes.
"All gods are real because they're imaginary."
By day they're a pair of blind girls living in a Catholic orphanage under the care of kind, compassionate nuns who dote over them lovingly. By night, their sight returns and they sprout fangs, plunging into the night to forage for human blood. Being vampires, they have a natural attraction to cemeteries, where they cuddle up together atop graves and try to put the pieces of their fragmented memories together. They remember little of the past, save that they have lived many times before, roaming the earth together as vampires, always being pursued and dying violently, only to rise from their graves and begin the cycle anew.
These, then, are The Two Orphan Vampires, characters who first found un-life in Rollin's novel of the same name (the title is an ironic twist on the famous French novel "Les Deux Orphelines"). Here they are given flesh in the form of Pic and Teboul, a comely duo who won the parts after answering a newspaper add. They do a fine job here as the latest version of Rollin's perrenial protagonists - the pair of attractive young women plunged into a maelstrom of darkness who appear in so many of the man's films (i.e. Requiem for a Vampire and Les Demoniaques) - beautifully sad and energetically bouyant at turns. They revel in their power while mourning the hopelesness of their predicament, leading an existence that seems to be playing on some kind of endless, tragic loop.
During their boneyard wanderings the orphans occasionally encounter fellow children of the night - sad, solitary creatures such as the lycanthropic "She-wolf", a bat-winged female vampire called the "Midnight Lady", and a grave-robbing Ghoul. Some of these beings appear to be genuine monsters like themselves, while others are merely mentally disturbed humans who believe themselves to be monsters. All of these nightcrawlers have a certain power and beauty about them. None of them are to be envied.
The orphans turn out to be budding bookworms, stealing the occasional volume when they can get their hands on it and reading them under the covers with a flashlight like a pair of schoolgirls. The orphans develop what might be termed a "goddess complex", identifying themselves with the pagan dieties of the Aztecs and revelling in sanguine accounts of mass human sacrifices made in tribute to them. In ages past, the orphans believe, they were worshipped as goddesses. But now they are monsters, shunned and hunted by the same humans who once willingly shed their own blood for them, and their time is running out once again.
Two Orphan Vampires has Rollin's biggest budget ever at 3 million Francs (which translates to rughly $700,000 dollars American) but it's not quite as slick and commercial looking as, say, Living Dead Girl. Unlike that film, this one is a pure "Rollinade" in that it has absolutely no interest whatsoever in being accessible to a broad, mainstream audience. What it does have, in mega-spades, is intoxicating draughts of Rollin's trademarks as an artist - wistful idealism, sardonic (and often self-mocking) humor, lyrical poetry, and dark romanticism. Rollin doesn't so much care to tell you story so much as he offers a private glimpse at his own morbid fairytale fantasies.
Some will undoubtedly find the lengthy dialogs between the orphans stilted and pretentious. Such people miss the point. The dialog of the orphans isn't intended to be even slightly realistic. Their dreamy ramblings are those of creatures who can be considered only just barely human, if at all. Their naivette' often inspires chuckles, but just as often their hopes and fantasies strike a powerful chord of pathos. The orphans want to hang on to this particular incarnation of theirs and retain the memories they've struggled to regain - not to mention the ones they've manufactured with their imagination.
The Two Orphan Vampires is a special film. One that that doesn't merely use the usual pulp trappings of the vampire mythos to explore its ideas the way Requiem did, but a horror movie that truly adds a new and unique take on the immortal legend. The vampire, unlike any other monster, is one that (perhaps due to its deceptive simplicty) is open to a seemingly endless variety of re-interpretations. And here we find the vampire reborn once again in the hands of an artist who contrives to say something refreshingly new with something unbelievably old. It's a fitting addition to the roster of an artist who is one of 20th century horror filmmaking's most unique and colorful voices.
Like all of Rollin's best films, The Two Orphan Vampires leaves you with a feeling, a heavy sense of bittersweet melancholy, that is hard to shake. Like all of Rollin's best films it stays with you long after the end credits have rolled, his little lost vampire girls haunting the graveyard of the imagination where the sad, solitary creature they encounter is you.
*** Skulls Full of Maggots
* Dead meat, ripe n' reeking.
** Moribund, but showing a slight flicker of life.
*** Good and healthy.
**** Brimming with vitality.
