Les paumées du petit matin

Michelle and Marie (Laurence Dubas and Christiane Coppe) escape from a mental institution. While Michelle is strong and determined to get away, Marie is more emotional and grows very attached to Michelle.

Their journey leads them to a traveling troupe of performance artists (aka: strippers). When they join the group, Michelle desires thrills, excitement, and male companionship. Poor Marie only wants to be with Michelle. Forever.

When the pair hook up with a thief named Sophie (Marianne Valiot), they seem to have found peace at last. Alas, Marie's true insanity comes into play.

This is another adult fantasy film from Director Jean Rollin. Filled with odd characters and bizarre situations, THE ESCAPEES is, at its heart, a love story. There's far less nudity -at least until the finale- than in most Rollin projects. The plot is also more straightforward, less surreal.

Rollin drastically retrains his penchant for absurdity here! This does allow for some stretches of dullness, including the long-long-LONG goodbye sequence near the end! Fortunately, Marie's anthropophobia saves the day!

The denouement is pure, bloody Rollin...

Although there is no horror and only a bit little sleaze and violence (courtesy of Brigitte Lahie no less) this is an unmistakable Jean Rollin film - nobody else could, or even wants to make films his way. Two girls, one rebellious and the other one almost catatonic, run away from a borstal-like psychiatric clinic, meets a butch pickpocket-girl, some black strippers and a bunch of sailors and ends up in various adventures. This almost plot less, commercially doomed movie, equally pretentious as it is naive, was bound to make 95% of its audience either laugh or leave their seats, but for a Rollin fan there are some beautiful shots to be found. The figure skating scene was incredible and so was some of the shots at the junkyard. I also liked the sad ending. Not among his best but an interesting footnote in his filmography... for a Rollin fan that is, all others beware! The most shocking thing about this film for me is that there is no...*gulp*... beach scene! What happened, Jean? A few years back you couldn't even shoot a cheap porno without a trip to the beach?

The Escapees is one of Jean Rollin's most obscure films. As I watched it I couldn't help but wonder just who this movie exactly was aimed at. It's a wilfully uncommercial film, even by Rollin's standards. And while I am for the most part a fan of the director's oeuvre I can't say I enjoyed this one very much at all. The main problem is it's so mundane and lacking in the otherworldly feel that is typical of the director's best work and is grounded too much in reality. While the basic idea of a couple of young melancholic girls on the run encountering a series of unusual events is textbook Rollin, the movie has none of the fantastique element to feed off. I've heard that this was a result of producers trying to impose certain restrictions on Rollin, and ensuring he did not make another of his idiosyncratic vampire movies. They wanted a more sell-able product but ironically ended up with an even less commercial film than the director would normally turn out. It's really not difficult to see why this became a lost film and effectively sank without a trace.

There are occasional moments that have the director's fingerprints all over them. Such as the scene in the ice rink at night. This memorable moment incorporates the poetic and slightly surreal imagery that Rollin is most loved for. Unfortunately, The Escapees rarely has any other sequences that approach this. Its fairly plot-less story just meanders from one low key scene to another with very little over all purpose. It doesn't feel like the director's heart is in this project and it isn't ultimately a lot of fun.

This movie gets a bad rap as it is not your typical Jean Rollin vampire romp. I guess not every movie has to have nudity and violence. I can't believe that's coming from my mouth. But it kept my interest which is very hard to do with so many movie options nowadays. It's a story about caring for other people. The one girl Michelle is very attractive and I hate to say that if she was not "hot" the movie would not be watchable as shallow as that sounds but I'm being honest. I'm not proud of that statement it's the truth.

At one time this was one of Jean Rollin's lost films, but in the age of DVD/Blu-ray its becoming a thing of the past. So is it worth the lime-light(?)... for me, it's a no. That's not implying its awful, just strictly mundane and forgettable low-budget drama.

There's really nothing there, outside a couple of brief moments highlighting Rollin's signature touches (two young women, erotic lesbianism and haunting tragedy). It just lacked those surreal images or better put dream-like quality, instead favouring a glum, down-to- earth reality to tell a tale about the journey of a pair of runaways from an insane asylum. The journey doesn't really add up to much, as it meanders and falls on the repetitiveness with its talkative nature. Because visually it's not striking enough, the plot less nature is found out by being bogged down and it slowly moves from one scenario to another with little conviction. Although the last 10 minutes or so, is where Rollin shines (outside the intro and ice-skating ring scene).

Laurence Dubas and Christiane Coppé are quite good as the two runaways. Watching their neurotic relationship develop made the ending much more effective. Also showing up in a minor bit part is Rollin's regular Brigitte Lahaie.

"The Escapees" is nothing more, nothing less then a curio.