'The Escapees' (1981) - Jean Rollin.

The evocative, obsidian dark fable 'Les paumées du petit matin' aka 'The Escapees' (1981) remains a uniquely captivating example of Jean Rollin's exquisitely visual, emotionally dense art. The maestro's singular flair for atmospheric, weirdly immersive flights of voluptuously enveloping fantasy is manifestly apparent here. Earnestly acted, dramatically compelling, and undeniably provocative, The Escapees opacity, poetical nature, and frequently episodic narrative might prove alienating to those weaned on more formulaic genre fare. 

This elegiac, finely woven adult fairy tale has long been one of my preferred darkly transporting, Jean Rollin dreamscapes. While lacking his signature sanguinary excesses, and slight on overtly erotic content, it is generously endowed with a depth of sensitivity and soul-soaring, imagination-inspiring poetry! 'The Runaways' engages hearts, and revivifies bad movie-muted molecules, and no matter how many times I watch it, I am consistently moved by the eventful travails of our two tragic, asylum absconding, increasingly vulnerable, pluckily adventure-seeking waifs.

Once emancipated from this Draconian, grimly inhospitable facility, Michelle (Laurence Dubas) and Marie (Christiane Coppé) find temporary succour with a tawdry troupe of itinerant vaudeville misfits. Illegally performing al fresco burlesque routines for a bellicose crowd of hyperbolically boozed-up sailors soon proves wearisome. Only narrowly eluding the gendarmes our ingenuous duo take up with charismatic, tomboy-ish pickpocket, Sophie (Marianne Valio). Their weary, tousled heads are aroused with the ravishing prospect of exotic far-flung lands. Once despondent, they are soon giddy with anticipation, thrilled by the romance of taking a sea voyage to magical vistas hitherto unimaginable to them. Rarely eulogised, Jean Rollin's gentle, melancholy, delightfully off-beat melodrama 'The Escapees' has a strange, appealingly elusive quality that I find absolutely irresistible.