Now let's travel to France for 1973's THE IRON
ROSE, directed by Jean Rollin. The film's set up is deceptively simple: a young
man (Pierre Dupont) and young woman (Francoise Pascal) meet at a wedding,
arrange to go on a date the next day, and find themselves stuck in a cemetery
after it closes for the night.
The opening is more than a little reminiscent
of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: the girl is creeped out by the cemetery, the boy
is joking and being unsettlingly irreverent about the whole thing, the other
people in the cemetery seem weird.
Then, instead of a zombie outbreak erupting,
night falls. No matter how much the couple wanders around the cemetery they
find themselves going in circles, losing the path, unable to find the walls
around the cemetery and unable to find the gate.
At first it just seems like they're lost, but
soon both of them are freaking out as it seems something supernatural might be
at play. They take turns being frightened and confident. At first the boy is
sure they'll get out of it, then he becomes unsettled as the girl seems to
start losing her mind.
It's an interesting look at relationships in
general. Even though the couple in the story has just met, the night in the
cemetery could be viewed as a compression of an entire failed relationship,
form the honeymoon period all the way through to the whole thing finally
falling apart.
The film succeeds in being both suspenseful
and artistic, but I have to admit that the main thing that kept my attention,
aside from the mystery of what exactly was going on, was Francois Pascal as the
girl. She's so beautiful and turns in such a strange performance that it got me
through otherwise potentially dull passages with ease.
THE IRON ROSE is not for everyone – not much
happens in it and the movie brings up more questions than it offers answers.
It's not a horror movie in the tradition of jump scares or monsters, but it is
horrifying the way a nightmare is that seems kind of real but you just can't
quite make sense of.
No comments:
Post a Comment