Truly Dreadful Film

Good start, but then it gets ruined

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Marie (Christiane Coppé) has an incurable inability to communicate with the outside world, and has been in care on three separate occasions. We first see her sitting in isolation, rocking to and fro forlornly in a chair in the misty gardens of a stately asylum. It's the classic, haunting type of scene French Director Jean Rollin excels at. Curiously, Marie begins a rapport with fellow inmate angry, loud Michelle (Laurence Dubas), and together, they plan to escape from the institution. Once again, Rollin's predilection for a young female duo as main players comes into play here. The two girls instantly find comfort in one another, their more tender scenes illuminated by Philippe D'Aram's melancholy score.To steer Rollin away from his favoured theme of supernatural horrors, Jacques Ralf was drafted in to co-script the story, much to Rollin's discomfort. Unusually, some of the more 'talky' scenes were cut by the director, who usually refrains from cutting much at all. We are still left with a wordier storyline than we're used to. Long considered a lost film, it was with great anticipation the eventual project was found - and it is that reason more than anything else that 'The Escapees' has not enjoyed great acclaim among Rollin aficionados: the hype put the film on a near-impossible pedestal.Having said that, events are very slow-moving here, and not hugely filled with incident. But then, that's a trademark of Rollin. This, however, doesn't lend itself to the typical dream-like atmosphere due to its very real setting. The two girls' adventures are a curious delight especially an almost surreal and rowdy erotic dance performance in the middle of a freezing night-time junkyard, and so is a very haunting set-piece in an abandoned ice-rink (Coppé was hired partly because of her proficiency as a skater).Two increasingly disillusioned girls meeting a disparate band of other disillusioned people: dreamers, outcasts and drifters. This may not make for the most scintillating narrative, and some scenes do drag, but 'The Escapees' contains more than enough Rollin-esque touches to keep me happy. Equally, the oppressively drab, unfriendly, rainy, cold darkness of many of the locations still somehow comes across as being strangely poetic. Regulars including Natalie Perrey, Louise Dhour ("Sometimes it's better not to know what your immediate future holds,") and mighty Brigitte Lahiae (and Rollin himself) are reassuring just by being there, even if their characters are further examples of the kind of people and societies the two girls are trying to escape. The hopelessness of their ambition is compounding by a very sad finale which seems nevertheless to be tragically inevitable.

Rebellious spitfire Michelle (a lively performance by the fetching Laurence Dubas) and the painfully shy and forlorn Marie (beautifully played with aching vulnerability by the lovely Christiane Coppe) are a pair of troubled young women who manage to escape from a sanitarium. The pair do their best to avoid detection from the authorities by joining up with a traveling band of exotic dancers.Director Jean Rollin, who also co-wrote the odd and thoughtful script with Jacques Ralf, presents an unusual, affecting, and interesting cinematic meditation on the basic youthful human need to live a free and spontaneous independent existence that unfolds at a gradual pace, vividly captures stunning moments of raw beauty and wrenching poignancy (Marie's solo figure skating set piece at an empty ice rink in particular is simply breathtaking), does his customary ace job of crafting an enchanting dreamlike atmosphere, and astutely nails both the danger and excitement of throwing caution to the wind through living a rootless peripatetic lifestyle. Dubas and Coppe do sterling work and display an appealing unforced natural chemistry in the leads; they receive sturdy support from Marianne Valiot as scrappy thief Sophie, Louise Dhour as compassionate nightclub owner Madame Louise, Patrick Perrott as the sensitive Pierrot, and Brigitte Lahaie as a snooty rich bitch. The downbeat ending packs a devastating punch. Claude Becognee's sumptuous cinematography and Philippe D'Aram's spare melancholy score are both up to speed. Offbeat and worth a look.

After telling my dad last year that I had enjoyed watching the horror film Fascination from auteur director Jean Rollin,I was happily caught by surprise,when my dad recently revealed that he had picked up a Rollin film,which led to me going on the run with the escapees.The plot:Seeing their lives slip away inside an insane asylum, Michelle & Maire decide to escape to freedom.Breaking out of the asylum,Marie and Michelle run away into the wilderness,and end up at a circus being held on a concrete wasteland.As they start to become friends with some of the circus performers,Maire and Michelle set their sights on finally gaining true freedom.View on the film:Starting the film in an insane asylum,co-writer/(along with Jacques Ralf) director Jean Rollin drains the movie of any colour by subtly locking the girls in the asylum by surrounding them in dried up red, green and blues.Along with the brittle colours,Rollin and cinematographer Claude Bécognée also use swift hand held camera moves to give the circus a rolling in the chaos mood.Pulled out to a 102 (not the 95 mins that IMDb list) minute running time,the screenplay by Ralf and Rollin struggles to develop any sense of rhythm,as Maire and Michelle's attempt to be freed of the asylum lack any sense of urgency or a deepening in the relationship between Maire and Michelle.Failing to take advantage of the elegant charm from Laurence Dubas and Christiane Coppé's performances as Michelle & Marie,Rollin's takes a mad dash in the titles final moments to strike a doomed romance Film Noir final note,which whilst impressive,is unable to make up for the previously plodding 95 minutes having been chained down.

Rollin's 'Les Paumées du petit matin' is finally being released in the UK and US by Redemption Films, re-titled 'The Escapees'. In the same vein as Night of the Hunted and Requiem for a Vampire, Rollin tells the tale of two young runaway girls escaping from an institution.It might not be as accomplished as some of Rollin's greats, but it contains truly unforgettable scenes, imbued with all the ethereal, surreal qualities of a stylish Rollin masterpiece.The stunning Britte Lahaie makes an appearance, which is as good a reason as any to buy this film, and Redemption promise an original negative in their release.