| Levres
De Sang (Lips Of Blood) DVD released: December 2, 2005. Approximate running time: 83 minutes Aspect ratio: Anamorphic 1.78:1 Widescreen Rating: NR Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono DVD Release: Encore Films Region Coding: PAL Region 0 Retail Price:
49,95 Euros |
 |
| Quick links: [video] [audio] [extras] [overall] |
| The Film |
|
One of Jean Rollin’s more interesting films, 1975's Levres De Sang (better known in North America as Lips Of Blood, which is how it was released on DVD a few years back from Image/Redemption) begins with the simple image of a van heading through the night towards an eerie old building. When it stops, the two male passengers emerge, open the back of the van up, and pull out a dead body. When an older woman (Nathalie Perry) appears, she leads them
down into the crypt where the body is placed inside a coffin that
lies waiting for it. As the men begin to seal the coffin and nail it
closed, the camera reveals to us that the corpse is still breathing.
We don’t know why these people are doing this, but when the old
lady puts up a cross at the entrance to the crypt facing the four
coffins, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the four
people who lay buried in this eerie locale might just have a
penchant for sucking blood. From here, we cut back to the hustle and bustle of city life, where Frederic (Jean-Loup Philippe) is hanging out at a chic party in celebration of a new perfume’s launch. While hanging out he’s drawn to a poster that features a decrepit but somehow still elegant looking castle that reminds him of his days as a young boy where he became lost while exploring the area with his parents. He wandered into this same castle where he was helped out by a gorgeous woman in a white gown (Annie Brilland).
The next morning when he knows he needs to go out and find his
parents and return to his normal life, he tells her that he loves
her and that one day he’ll return to her. He gives her one of his
toys and heads out on his way, but his promised return never
happened. With the flashback out of the way and the basic premise of
the story now in motion, modern day Frederic decides to fulfill that
promise and head out to that castle and see if she’s still there. To find out more about the castle and its whereabouts he talks to the photographer who snapped the shot (Marine Grimaud) but she is quite elusive about the location and agrees to tell him where it is only if he meets her one night at a location of her choice, an old theater. He agrees despite the strangeness of it all, but when he shows up to meet her he finds she’s been murdered. Frederic refuses to let this stop him from his mission, if anything, her death serves as further fuel for the fire that now burns within him. Later that night, Frederic notices a beautiful woman wandering in the dark. He follows her and she leads him to four female vampires who abduct him and bring him back to the crypt from the opening sequence. Frederic escapes the next morning and tells his mother of what happened to him. Her reaction is, of course, disbelief, but she seems to know more about what is happening to him than she lets on. Eventually, Frederic is reunited with the woman who has haunted his dreams for so long, but it’s not the romantic reunion he’d been hoping for and in fact it will put him at the biggest crossroads of his life and force him to choose between life and love. More linear than many of his other films in the 'lesbian vampire' sub-genre for which he's so well known, Jean Rollin plays this one fairly straight at least in terms of how he tells the story. Everything happens in a very linear fashion, save for the flashback (which doesn't upset the flow of the movie at all) and even those not well versed in the man's work should have no problems whatsoever following this one. The flashback that does happen only serves to justify Frederic's actions and explain his obsession with the castle and the girl that he knows still lives there. It all plays out rather nicely, with the addition of some further plot twists provided in the scenes with his mother made more mysterious by her obvious secrecy. As much a character as any of the performers in the film are the locations where the movie takes place. The beach that shows up in a few of Rollin's films plays a huge part in the atmospheric ending of the movie and the coffin that washes out to sea in the final minutes of the film remains one of the most poetic images out of his filmography. The film is tragic, odd, almost surreal at times but it remains quite beautiful in a strange sort of way. The cinematography is top notch, and once again Rollin proves to be a master of composition, playing with color and framing and shadow like a kid in a candy store. While ultimately, Levres De Sang is as much a romance as it is a horror movie (as many of his movies are), it's an engrossing and absolutely gorgeous looking film that provides enough gratuitous nudity, lesbian vampire action and mild bloodshed to appeal to the genre enthusiast but also manages to tell a rather sad and completely interesting story at the same time. While it might not be the film that Rollin is best known for, it's up there and rests firmly in the top tier of his work. |
|
| Video | 3.5/5 | |
 |
|
|
| Audio | 3/5 | |
|
|
|
| For a film more than three decades old that was low budget to begin with, the French language Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track sounds pretty solid on this release. There is some mild background hiss throughout much of the movie and if you listen for them you’ll pick out the occasional pop here and there but for the most past, things sound all right. Dialogue is fairly clean and pretty consistent even if sometimes the levels fluctuate just a little bit. It’s not a perfect track, but it’s pretty decent none-the-less and it suits the film just fine. The extensive selection of optional subtitles for the film includes choices in English, Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and Polish. |
| Extras | 5/5 | |
|
|
|
|
Encore has spreads the extras for
this release across all three of the discs that are housed within the
classy looking digipack packaging. Here’s how it all goes down… DISC ONE: Rollin, speaking in English,
provides another one of his fine video introductions to the film on the
first disc. For just over ten-minutes in length he gives his honest
feelings about the strengths and weaknesses of the film, and covers some
of the difficulties that arose during the shoot and how they affected
the final version of the movie. He also talks about working with the two
Castel Twins and seems to have really enjoyed how their performances
turned out and how they added to the film. DISC TWO: The second disc in the set starts
out with a twenty-four minute video interview with Jean Rollin conducted
on the instantly recognizable beach where so many of the more famous
moments from his filmography have been shot. Rollin, speaking in French
this time with optional English subtitles, reveals how he came to find
the beach as a kid growing up in the area and how it has always been a
special place to him as it is partially responsible for how he got into
film in that he felt he should capture the beauty of the scenery
somehow. He talks about projects that he wanted to film in the area that
never got off the ground for one reason or another and he talks about
shooting his first feature there as well. Rollin is in fine form in this
interview, he’s very jovial and obviously quite enthusiastic to be on
the beach talking about its importance to him and to his work and as
such, this interview proves to be not only very interesting but also
very revelatory. A second interview finds male lead
Jean-Loup Philippe sitting down in front of the camera for just over
sixteen-minutes, speaking in French with English subtitles about his
experiences on the film. He talks about his early career as an actor,
how he came to meet Jean Rollin and how he came to be involved in Levres De Sang specifically. Interestingly enough, Philippe has apparently
worked with Ingmar Bergman (famed director of The
Virgin Spring and many others) on the stage before and he
explains how that came to happen here. Lots of good stories here, and
this proves to be another very interesting piece. Interview number three rounds up the
still lovely Nathalie Perry, who speaks for just over twelve minutes in
French with English subtitles about her work on the movie and about her
many collaborations with Jean Rollin that stretch back all the way to
the late sixties and about the circumstances that lead to him casting
her in one of his films for the first time. She talks about her
relationship with Jean-Loup Philippe and how it turned into something
more than just another working relationship, how she was completely
charmed by Serge Rollin’s unusual technique of practicing his lines
for the movie, and how she feels about Rollin and his work three decades
after the fact. This interview is just as good as the first two and
again, Perry’s got a lot of great stories to tell and if you’ve ever
wanted to know more about the woman from the opening of this film,
here’s your chance. The fourth interview features
Jean’s son, Serge Rollin, who speaks in French with English subtitles
for just over thirteen minutes in length about how he played the younger
version of Philippe’s character in the film (it’s a brief but
important role) which made him the envy of all of his friends in his
youth. Jean knew early one that Serge was fascinated by his career as a
director and because of that, this part was created specifically for him
so that he could experience the real world of movie making for himself
and get a taste of what it is really like, rather than assume it’s the
glamorous lifestyle that so many young people assume it must be. From
all accounts, everyone treated the young first time actor very
professionally and very nicely, likely due in part to the fact that he
took his work very seriously and was there to do the best job that he
could and not to skirt in on his father’s coattails. The fifth and final interview on
this disc puts the lovely Catherine Castel in front of the camera so
that she can speak in French with English subtitles for just under
fifteen minutes about her work in Levres
De Sang and this proves to be a fantastic opportunity for fans
to learn about how she and her sister Marie got into the industry. They
were both underage at the time they were discovered by Jean Rollin but
once their birthday’s came he was ecstatic to be able to start using
them in his movies starting with La Vampire Nue. While some actresses might shy away from the
rather unorthodox casting that they found themselves lined up with,
Catherine shows no remorse at all and is more than happy to talk about
her work in French cinema fantastique as well as her work in the adult
industry a few years later. She goes into some very torrid detail about
the way that she and her sister worked together and this one is quite an
eye opener and will likely be, for many fans, the highlight of the
extras on this release! Finishing up the extra features on
this second disc is a decent sized still gallery set to music from the
film’s score running just over four minutes in length. As it plays
out, we get a chance to check out a nice selection of promotional
photographs, and behind the scenes photographs some of which detail some
material that didn’t make it into the final cut of the film. DISC THREE: Rollin provides a screen specific
commentary for roughly thirty-three minutes worth of material from the
film to start this disc off and he does so in English (no subtitles this
time, oddly enough). He covers some of the interesting oddities that
popped up during pre-production, how he and the crew had to over come
them, and what it was like shooting so much of the material for this
film out on location. He goes into no small amount of detail about the
history of certain buildings that we see in the film, talks about the
beach a little bit more as well as some of the other interesting places
that the movie takes place in, and does a really excellent job of giving
us a feel for what it must have been like for him on the set of the
film. Also included on this third disc is
Jean Rollin’s very first short film, Les Amoures Jeunes, which clocks in at just over ten minutes in
French with English subtitles and is presented in a decent if slightly
beaten 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. It makes sense to include
the short with Levres
De Sang as it takes place on that very same beach that Rollin
loves so much. Shot in 1958, this one is pretty odd but it sure looks
fantastic from a technical perspective with so much emphasis put on
capturing the natural beauty of the area. Sadly, there’s no Rollin
commentary provided for this short, which is a shame as it would have
been nice to hear his thoughts and memories on this first project of
his. The third disc finishes up with a
trailer for the feature on this disc as well as trailers for Les
Demoniaques and Requiem
Pour Un Vampire. All three are in widescreen and while not as
pretty looking as the features themselves, they’re in decent enough
shape. They are presented in French with no subtitles. |
|
| Overall | 3.5/5 | |
|
|
|
|
Framing issues aside (if it’s fixed down the road, I’ll be only too happy to bump up the overall rating for this release!), this is an otherwise exemplary presentation of one of Jean Rollin’s most interesting films. Levres De Sang is the very epitomy of the director’s trademark style of erotic, gothic horror and the extra features developed for this release are simply outstanding. Check out the Encore Films website by clicking here or visit Xploited Cinema to pick it up! |
| Film Rating | DVD Rating | |||
| Director: | Jean Rollin |
|
||
| Writers: | Jean Rollin |
|
||
| Released: | 1975 |
|
||
| Cast: | Jean-Loup Philippe, Annie Belle, Nathalie Perrey, Catherine Castel, Marie-Pierre Castel |
|
||
|
||||
| comment on this review in the forum |
| [Review Index] [Top of Page] |
| © copyright DVD Maniacs 2001-2005 |
