Platicsco
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
Jonah Abbott
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Nigel P
Marie (Christiane Coppé) has an incurable inability to communicate with the outside world, and has been in care on three separate occasions. We first see her sitting in isolation, rocking to and fro forlornly in a chair in the misty gardens of a stately asylum. It's the classic, haunting type of scene French Director Jean Rollin excels at. Curiously, Marie begins a rapport with fellow inmate angry, loud Michelle (Laurence Dubas), and together, they plan to escape from the institution. Once again, Rollin's predilection for a young female duo as main players comes into play here. The two girls instantly find comfort in one another, their more tender scenes illuminated by Philippe D'Aram's melancholy score.To steer Rollin away from his favoured theme of supernatural horrors, Jacques Ralf was drafted in to co-script the story, much to Rollin's discomfort. Unusually, some of the more 'talky' scenes were cut by the director, who usually refrains from cutting much at all. We are still left with a wordier storyline than we're used to. Long considered a lost film, it was with great anticipation the eventual project was found - and it is that reason more than anything else that 'The Escapees' has not enjoyed great acclaim among Rollin aficionados: the hype put the film on a near-impossible pedestal.Having said that, events are very slow-moving here, and not hugely filled with incident. But then, that's a trademark of Rollin. This, however, doesn't lend itself to the typical dream-like atmosphere due to its very real setting. The two girls' adventures are a curious delight especially an almost surreal and rowdy erotic dance performance in the middle of a freezing night-time junkyard, and so is a very haunting set-piece in an abandoned ice-rink (Coppé was hired partly because of her proficiency as a skater).Two increasingly disillusioned girls meeting a disparate band of other disillusioned people: dreamers, outcasts and drifters. This may not make for the most scintillating narrative, and some scenes do drag, but 'The Escapees' contains more than enough Rollin-esque touches to keep me happy. Equally, the oppressively drab, unfriendly, rainy, cold darkness of many of the locations still somehow comes across as being strangely poetic. Regulars including Natalie Perrey, Louise Dhour ("Sometimes it's better not to know what your immediate future holds,") and mighty Brigitte Lahiae (and Rollin himself) are reassuring just by being there, even if their characters are further examples of the kind of people and societies the two girls are trying to escape. The hopelessness of their ambition is compounding by a very sad finale which seems nevertheless to be tragically inevitable.
lost-in-limbo
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.
morrison-dylan-fan
After telling my dad last year that I had enjoyed watching the horror film Fascination from auteur director Jean Rollin,I was happily caught by surprise,when my dad recently revealed that he had picked up a Rollin film,which led to me going on the run with the escapees.The plot:Seeing their lives slip away inside an insane asylum, Michelle & Maire decide to escape to freedom.Breaking out of the asylum,Marie and Michelle run away into the wilderness,and end up at a circus being held on a concrete wasteland.As they start to become friends with some of the circus performers,Maire and Michelle set their sights on finally gaining true freedom.View on the film:Starting the film in an insane asylum,co-writer/(along with Jacques Ralf) director Jean Rollin drains the movie of any colour by subtly locking the girls in the asylum by surrounding them in dried up red, green and blues.Along with the brittle colours,Rollin and cinematographer Claude Bécognée also use swift hand held camera moves to give the circus a rolling in the chaos mood.Pulled out to a 102 (not the 95 mins that IMDb list) minute running time,the screenplay by Ralf and Rollin struggles to develop any sense of rhythm,as Maire and Michelle's attempt to be freed of the asylum lack any sense of urgency or a deepening in the relationship between Maire and Michelle.Failing to take advantage of the elegant charm from Laurence Dubas and Christiane Coppé's performances as Michelle & Marie,Rollin's takes a mad dash in the titles final moments to strike a doomed romance Film Noir final note,which whilst impressive,is unable to make up for the previously plodding 95 minutes having been chained down.
Michael_Elliott
Escapees, The (1981)** (out of 4) Forgotten film from Rollin about two girls who escape from a mental hospital and go on an odyssey. Michelle is the rougher of the two as she knows how to survive. Marie on the other hand has a fear of people yet for some reason she is attached to Michelle and wants to stay close to her on this journey. If you're looking for some sort of plot then you're going to be disappointed because there isn't one here. In the interview on the DVD Rollin talks about the various issues with the production of the film and how when they finally got it filmed, no one wanted it. After being released on video in a few countries, the film was pretty much given away to air on TV before the eventual DVD release. I didn't think the film was as bad as many had made it out to be but it's not too good either and in the end this is certainly for Rollin completest only. Those new to the director would certainly be best to start with one of his vampire films or better known works like THE LIVING DEAD GIRL. This movie actually shares a lot in common with the director's 1980 film NIGHT OF THE HUNTED, which is one I really hated. This one here works if you view it as some sort of strange nightmare or surreal trip to some unknown world. Everything we see is a reality but you might as well look at it as some sort of dream because none of it really makes any sense and in the end you'll probably be asking yourself what the entire point of the film was. I'm not sure what the point was but we do get some classic touches from Rollin. One scene involves a rather beautiful ice-skating sequence that packs a nice little punch. Another scene happens just before it and that's when the girls are standing on some docks letting giant waves hit them. The sexuality in the film is actually quite low as is the nudity up until the very end when Brigitte Lahaie shows up and does a very sexy little number. The two female leads fit their roles just fine and the supporting cast isn't too bad either. The biggest flaw in the film is its 101-minute running time, which is just way too long considering nothing happens and there are several scenes that pretty much just replay things that have happened earlier.
