So, after several years (a few too many, in fact), and right out of the blue, I'd decided to re-watch "She Killed in Ecstasy" last night. This, despite the fact that my just-arrived and still-wrapped brand new Nightmares Come at Night blu-ray is sitting on the coffee table in the living room. That's alright, we'll get to that one later. Now, I never did purchase that nice anamorphicly enhanced second DVD release that Image put out a few years after the Synapse Films version... Nope, I still have that first DVD release. Well, still have...?
To tell this story properly, one would have to recall, or imagine, the far-away time of 2002. It was near the end of my four-year employment at Blockbuster Video and I'd owned a DVD player for about a year and a half at this point, and I'd had an internet connection for not much longer than that. I don't exactly remember what the catalyst was, though it was probably the Immoral Tales book I'd been toting around from apartment to apartment for the previous 5 years and still hadn't read all the way through (this book now, by the way, is one of the more cherished possessions in my library) -- but whatever it was that ignited my sudden interest, I found myself suddenly obsessed with the idea Jess Franco and his films. I wanted to find out as much as I could about him, and I looked up anything I could find on the man and his movies on the internet, printing several of the pages off. I also photocopied pages from that Immoral Tales tome so I could highlight the shit out of it. And Soledad Miranda... Oh, my. The beauty, and the mystique that surrounded her -- the mystery and terrible coincidence around her tragically young death -- and the idyllic thoughts that Jess Franco could have so much loyalty to his reciprocally loyal muses, more so that I'd ever witnessed from any auteur at that point... I was enthralled. I also immediately began researching Jess Franco titles and available DVDs - which were, in fact, not all that easy to come by in North Vancouver back in 2002 - well, there was one store called Tom's Video that stocked a copy of Vampyros Lesbos to rent, but by the time I got to it the disc was scratched to shit and I couldn't watch it. However, I did find a couple of titles at a wholesaler DVD warehouse in Vancouver, but I decided, ultimately, to go through the catalogue distributors that supplied the Blockbuster Video I was working at. After all, I was a manager, I could order videos. I found, recently, that I still have that order confirmation sheet.
"Female Vampire DVD": $35.99
"She Killed in Ecstasy DVD": $49.99
The prices were nuts, but I ordered them anyway and then just sold them to myself at Blockbuster's computer-default DVD pricing, which was $29.99 per title. Plus my employee discount, which was 10 or 20 percent - I can't remember anymore, it's been too long. I do remember being so excited to watch these movies, I was ready to blow open my mind to the Jess Franco experience, and by the time the DVDs arrived at the store I'd found another spot downtown Vancouver called A&B Sound that had stocked three Jess Franco DVD titles from Anchor Bay. So I bought the original Succubus DVD release as well.
2002, that was. I was not ready for Jess Franco. I watched all three films, and I think my jaw was touching the floor (or at least it was by the end of the third movie). My reaction was not a good one to seeing the likes of Lina Romay walking directly into the camera (even bumping it!), the strange jump-cuts and shots that began out-of-focus or zoomed it, slightly missed their target, and re-adjusted. Plus the video on all of the DVDs were full of dirt, scratches, sound-pops. What the hell??? No thank you, sirs and ma'ams, I was definitely not ready for Franco. I actually went and returned all three DVDs to my store for a full (or perhaps inflated, for my troubles) refund. Even the Succubus DVD that hadn't even come from my store in the first place (we used the same video distributor to A&B Sound, anyway, so they did give me a Return Authorization Number for all three). Good thing we had a shrink-wrapping machine in the store. I was left reeling from that cinematic experience. I remember thinking that each Franco disc I put would be better - had to be better! But the aesthetics looked similar, the stories too damned dreamy and the narratives too disjointed.
Well, if you're reading this, then you've obviously seen what this blog is about - and so you know my initial shock at Jess Franco's films eventually wore off, and not so long after turned to something of a curious appreciation. A couple of years went by and the more accessible Franco films like Two Undercover Angels (Anchor Bay), Exorcism (Synapse), and soon, Vampyros Lesbos (I bought the Image re-release that had just come out - I would have stuck with Synapse, but I seriously couldn't find a copy at that time for less than 45 bucks!), well, they began to grow on me. And I kept trying different films, kept dipping my toes into his world. And looking back, I seriously think (scratch that, I know) that Soledad Miranda, or at least the ideaof Soledad Miranda, was what kept me going back to those waters to dip my toes in. I had no idea how deep those waters were at that time...
Eventually, when the stars aligned, I came across that Synapse DVD of She Killed in Ecstasy at a second-hand shop that is now long gone from Granville Street & Robson in the heart Vancouver. Image Entertainment had already, by now, re-released that film, but somehow I needed to reconnect myself with that original one. Plus it was $14.99, pretty cheap back then. Female Vampire came back to me via a friend who had also purchased it somewhere along the way, and disliked it, and then that copy was replaced once again by the 4-film Jess Franco Collection from Image, and then finally to be replaced by the recent Blu-ray from Redemption. So I've ended up owning that damned film four times! I didn't replace Succubus until Blue Underground re-released it a couple of years after that (we're around 2006 now, for those of you trying to keep track). I obviously have a good amount of love for all of these films now, and often they just keep getting better with each viewing.
And now, we're at last night, and I was putting that old Synapse DVD into the player for the third time in my life (and my third player, too -- but that DVD is still the same old one from 2005). No, it didn't magically turn anamorphic sitting there in my box of European DVDs, but it was magical, anyway, as I got sucked right back into the locales of that the film (that seriously rival those amazing locations of Countess Perverse and How to Seduce a Virgin), and fully engaged with the amazing on-screen charisma of Soledad... That camera loved her as much as Franco did. Or perhaps, Franco's camera did, anyway. After this third viewing of She Killed in Ecstasy I'm reminded and reaffirmed as to why it has a place at the very, very tip-top of my all-time favorite Jess Franco movie (where there remains a spot for Succubus to share, as well). With each repeat viewing the magic of Franco's unique eye and Soledad's performance, almost like a artistic dancer of the cinema, seems to be getting even more potent. So no, I was not ready for Franco in 2002.
And I suppose that now, it's high time for the Vampyros Lesbos re-watch.
Special thanks to soledadmiranda.com
No comments:
Post a Comment