Fascination (1979)

Jean Rollin

France

80 min, color, French (English subtitles)

Review © 2005 Branislav L. Slantchev

Easily one of the top three Rollin films for me (heck, even my wife likes it), Fascination is artsy, seductive, totally fun, and it achieves all of that without having a single vampire in sight! It is an attack on bourgeois morality but not in its Victorian prudishness as the latter is always implicitly excoriated in everything Rollin does. In other words, taking loose morals as a given, this feature is going to probe yet another curious conceit that separates the aristocrats from people of mean birth.

The two aristocrats drinking ox blood at a slaughterhouse	Gratuitous shot of Brigitte Lahaie

Nietzsche loved to talk about slave morality as opposed to master morality. The simple idea is that morality is an invention of men, it has no mystical or supernatural origin, it is not something God has endowed our immortal souls with knowledge of. Being such an artifice, morality really depends on whether the person subscribing to a particular code has power or not. (He may be a bit vague what exactly constitutes power, but I guess any person who has control of his destiny without depending on someone else would be thought powerful.) At any rate, Nietzsche seems to have hated the commonplace morality of his day because he believed it derived from Christian tradition, and Christianity was the religion of the slave, of the person who does not have much to like in this life and so he always looks toward the next.

Vive la resistance!	Pretending to be scared

The master morality, on the other hand, characterizes all those who love their life, and so have no desire to worry about the next. These people are the powerful whose lives are not subjected to the control of others. (It may be worth noting that even the slave has some measure of control since suicide is always an option.) The aristocracy in this Rollin film can be thought of as possessing this master morality, which is beyond the pedestrian concepts of good and evil. Even though the members of this higher class are forced to maintain some facade for the benefit of the lumpen masses, what they do in the privacy of their castles would shock and disgust any ordinary person. But the simple fact is that the reason for such a reaction stems from the unthinking commitment to a slave morality that places high value on things like lives of others regardless of their worth.

Eva and Elizabeth	A little comedy of blades

It is in this context that I wish to place this film: the conflict between alternative value systems, one espoused by the ordinary folk, and the other available only to the libertine types from the aristocracy. The film opens with a delightful scene in at a slaughterhouse. A doctor brings three ladies, all apparently complaining of anemia, for a modern treatment---a drink of ox blood. One of them is a newcomer and so can barely sustain her disgust while gulping down a glass of the red liquid in front of a giggling butcher. The other two, on the other hand, seem quite accustomed to the procedure, and obviously enjoy it. They are exquisitely clad in expensive clothes, one wearing all white, and the other dressed in black. This scene sets immediately introduces us both to some of the main aristocratic protagonists and to their unorthodox lives.

Elizabeth contemplating their hobby	Naked but unbowed

Cut to the common folk in a barn. They a rough bunch, three guys and a girl (Myriam Watteau), all of dubious character, who have apparently somehow assisted another man, Mark (Jean-Marie Lemarie), to con someone out of a bunch of gold coins. Naturally, the uneasy alliance disintegrates quickly, and suddenly Mark is holding the girl hostage in order to escape with the loot. Somewhere in the countryside, the two stop and the girl offers herself in exchange for a release, but this only causes Mark to burst in uncontrollable derisive laughter. Obviously, he has no interest in bedding such a tramp, although as we shall see later, he has no aversion to sex. This greatly upsets the scorned woman and she manages to escape after kicking him in the groin. She is quickly joined by her three co-bandits and they attempt to hunt down Mark, who makes it to a lonely chateau.

A rapist finds his just deserts	The famous scythe sequence

The stage is now set for the clash of the two cultures. Once inside, Mark quickly discovers that only two girls seem to inhabit the enormous house at present. They are Eva (Brigitte Lahaie) and Elisabeth (Franca Mai). Mark threatens them with his (comically small) gun, causing them to beg for their lives. The problem is that this begging has a strange undertone: it is as if they really do not believe that he will harm them but they go through the motions of proper victim behavior to satisfy their unwelcome guest. Somewhat confused by their reaction, Mark locks them up in a bedroom and goes back to the main room, where he greedily counts the money, an obvious expression of his low mercantile interests.

Gratuitous shot of the aristocratic Fanny Magier	I wanna play that game too

Eva and Elisabeth are not prisoners for they have an extra key. However, instead of leaving immediately, they indulge in a bit of love-making in stark contrast to the behavior of their supposed captor. Afterwards, they dress up and calmly walk downstairs. The startled Mark can do the one thing his limited imagination suggests: he threatens them again, but this time the victim show is over. The two girls openly giggle at him, then mock him by pleading for him to spare them, then Elisabeth reminds him that he can rape them, and Eva offers herself to save the alleged innocence of her friend. This act totally unbalances Mark who continues with his humorless threats even as the girls pull out two daggers with which they playfully threaten Mark, suggesting that perhaps they should rape him instead. The brute takes this sarcasm seriously and pulls out his gun again, but it is clear that he's about had it with these strange creatures and will leave the house.

Your regular blood-swilling sorority	Mark attempts to humiliate Helene

Eva, however, is determined not to let him go, and so she simply seduces him right there and then, despite the obvious discomfort of Elisabeth. It is unclear for now why Elisabeth is unhappy: is she jealous of Mark or of Eva? She professes (to herself) to be in love with Mark but what sort of attraction this is will remain quite mysterious until the end. At the very least, she knows why Eva wants to keep him there, and she does not like it: whether it is for Mark's benefit or her own is also debatable. She also seems to be tortured by her existence and contemplates suicide although nothing comes out of it.

Mark displays low plebeian emotion	Eva betrayed

As Mark straightens himself, Eva takes his bag of money to the four bandits lying in wait outside. They insist on checking if all of it is there, so she accompanies them to the stables, all in apparent disregard for her safety, much to the dismay and further confusion of Mark. As two of the bandits count the loot, the third (Cyril Val) rapes Eva. She is deceptively unconcerned with it: undressing as commanded, obediently lying down on the straw (after placing a cloak on top of it), and receiving the guy who can't stop praising himself and his supposed sexual prowess and control over women. Eva even gets on top, and then stealthily pulls out a dagger from underneath the cloak, and stabs her assailant during the intercourse. She then takes a scythe and dispassionately dispatches the remaining three bandits. In under a minute she has done what Mark could not even contemplate doing, and she seems not a bit affected by it. It's just something she had to do, like submitting to the rape in the first place.

The feast at midnight	The two crime-crossed lovers

When evening comes, other women arrive, including the leader of that group, Helene (Fanny Magier). They toy with Mark although their jokes all have a sinister current that ominously suggests that something will happen to him come midnight. He finds it all amusing---what can seven women do to him and his gun after all---and he prances around, dancing and playing blindfold "guess who." When he identifies Helene, he demands that she be his slave for the next fifteen minutes. She agrees, perhaps fully aware what he has in mind. They retire to a separate room, where he proceeds to humiliate her because her imperious demeanor has been grating on his nerves. As any plebeian, he is extremely sensitive to any slights to his coveted position of authority and self-respect. So he forces her to strip and kneel, then threatens to burn her with his cigarette. She does not flinch, letting him have his way and fully aware what they are going to do to him next.

I think I only loved your blood	Gratuitous shot of artfully bloodied Franca Mai

Before the women can put their plan into motion, however, Mark discovers the body of the girl bandit and actually brings it inside the house. He castigates the aristocrats whose games he cannot comprehend, just like their obvious disregard for others' lives triggers his slave morality. He abandons the chateau in disgust but when he goes to the stables, Eva shows up intending to kill him too. Before she can do it, however, Elisabeth shoots her and helps Mark escape. The bleeding Eva drags herself across the stone bridge toward the chateau only to have her erstwhile companions hungrily bite her and drink her blood until she perishes. This finally reveals what sort of plans the women had for Mark too: not satisfied with oxen, these aristocrats occasionally indulge in their taste for human blood.

One, however, wonders if Elisabeth has succumbed to the same slave morality. She has helped Mark elude this doom but when he professes to be in love with her, she suddenly acquires that same mischievous smile and shoots him. As he expires slowly, she turns around and states the obvious: she has never loved him, she only loved his blood, and for that she does not need him to be alive at all. She returns to the chateau where Helene greets her with "I love the way you look with blood on your mouth." The festivities can certainly continue.

A stunning film, beautifully photographed and competently acted, Fascination is definitely something no serious fan of cinema should miss. In addition to the famous scene of the two women in the middle of a slaughterhouse, this one also has one of the signature Rollin shots: the nude Brigitte Lahaie clad in a black cloak holding menacingly the scythe in the windy afternoon. It does not hurt that the women are as beautiful as they are vicious (my favorites are Franca, Helene, and the unnamed brunette played by Marie-Georges Pascal, the lead in The Grapes of Death).

The Redemption DVD is pretty decent, although the 1.66:1 widescreen transfer is not anamorphic. The French soundtrack is rather sparse but since there are no special sound effects worthy of note, it's not a big deal. No complaints about the optional English subtitles. What do want to know is whether there exists a director's cut of this film. The French trailer shows many scenes that are either not in the film at all or are edited differently. Since they mostly have to do with full frontal nudity, I wonder if there's an x-rated version of this film like there are of several other Rollin features. I can't really see what such a version would add, however, since the restrained nudity is actually quite welcome for it forces the viewer to concentrate on the real content of the film. Most recommended.

December 7, 2005