The Vampire or The Actual Charme of the Bourgeoisie. With sets fittingly designed for the Belgian School of the Bizarre, the cold Ostend seafront is the backdrop for a game of seduction and the supernatural. L’hôtel des Thermes, where a large part of this vampire story unfolds, transposes the customary Gothic castle to a 1930s neo-classical building, reminiscent of a Paul Delvaux painting, which Delphine Seyrig’s ghostly central character appears to have stepped straight out of. She agreed to work with Kümel thanks to Alain Resnais, her partner at the time, for whom she had played an entirely different ghostly role in Last Year at Marienbad. In Les Lèvres rouges, originally intended to be a simple film, all blood and eroticism, Seyrig embodies the quintessential vampire-like image: a powerful, mysterious and unattainable woman who seems to come from another era. A vampire and a bourgeoise, she feeds off the other and disposes of him, embracing the darkest desires as a metaphor for social and sexual control, exerting her power of fascination over men and women alike. Lesbianism is a timeworn fantasy in erotic films and an inherent theme associated with the vampire, that adds another transgressive element: attraction to a monster, to a member of a higher social class, and ultimately to a woman. Countess Elisabeth Báthory, played by Delphine Seyrig, is a world away from the historic character that inspired her, the aristocratic Hungarian, who reportedly bathed in the blood of young virgins in order never to age. This is more Duras than Hammer; here, she is a bourgeois and decadent figure gliding about on grey, melancholic sets, red lips against a silver gown from days gone by, bedecked in sparkles from the omnipresent star filter. But what stays with you is her voice. A deep, weary drawl that casts a spell, bewitching young lovers, even as it speaks of sordid murders. And well beyond the 70s, like a ghost or a vampire imprinted on film, she retains her complete fascination; that haunting voice is Delphine Seyrig in the flesh, almost as much as the actress herself.

Juliette Armantier