The Escapees

Jean Rollin

Redemption

All Region DVD

Web: http://salvation-films.com/

The Escapees aka ‘Les Paumees Du Petit Matin’ is the 1981 release from Jean Rollin which continues his dreamlike vision from such earlier films as Fascination (1979) and Requeim for a Vampire (1971). Rollin is considered the father of erotic horror cinema and has produced a wide variety of films over a very long career, The Escapees is an intriguing film as it emphasizes the more mesmeric aspects of his work rather than the traditional horror and sex combination found in many of his other films.

Derek Jarman once said when asked how he made film, that he created cinema as a painter not a cinematographer. In many ways the same applied to Rollin, he sees his work as a visionary or dreamer and his films cannot be approached as traditional works of cinema. They all have an ethereal and surreal quality with flashes of dreams, occasional nightmares, erotic eruptions, violence and death – all one would expect from a journey into the dream-world of the unconscious. Each film is like a Pandora’s box - opening the lid on a Freudian dimension of sex, emotion and death.

In The Escapees we have a fairytale like story set in a very real world. Two girls, one aggressive and disruptive, the other withdrawn and sullen, find themselves in an uncaring mental institution. On a dark night they escape beyond the walls hoping to find freedom in the outside world. They meet a group of itinerant erotic dances who perform burlesque shows advertised by word of mouth and performed at the edge of town. They join this exciting and dangerous world and experience things neither expected including raw sexuality, beautiful dancers, erotic lesbian encounters with French adult star Brigitte Lahaie and even violence and death.

Redemption has done a superb job on this very rare film offering an all region release remastered from the original negative. It also includes a specifically shot interview with Jean Rollin discussing The Escapees and his many other works.

The Escapees is in French with clear white English subtitles.

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.2 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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