Jacques Demy's Lola (1962)

The innovations of the French New Wave were many, but one was the uncorking of sheer joy: joy in youth, joy in rule-breaking, joy in cinema. No film of the era is more blissful than Jacques Demy's Lola, a bittersweet ode to first loves and missed opportunities. Gorgeously photographed by Raoul Coutard (shortly after his groundbreaking work on Breathless), it's set in the atmospheric seaside town of Nantes. At the center of the interlocking storylines is a dancer (the stunning Anouk Aimée), who reunites with an ennui-burdened childhood friend (Marc Michel) but pines for the memory of a long-lost sailor. Lola points toward Demy's subsequent musical treasures, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, which together form one of the great happy visions in all of movies: a niche between workaday reality and a fairy-tale world in which everything works out exactly as it should. --Robert Horton Amazon.com

Not a masterpiece but very likeable

Originally conceived as a Technicolor musical but shot on the cheap (so cheap they couldn't even afford a sound crew), Jacques Demy's Lola isn't exactly the masterpiece critics claimed back in 1960, but it is one of the more likable films of the French New Wave, largely because it's less concerned with scoring stylistic points and more interested in people. What's particularly refreshing is that Demy likes these people - all of them, without exception - and never judges them, and that generosity of spirit carries it a long way. Following the role coincidence plays in our lives through its characters whose paths and hearts cross, it staves off complete schmaltz with an awareness that one person's happy ending is often another's missed possibility of happiness: Demy may not be able to resist giving one character a Hollywood Happy Ending, but it does come at a price to another, while other characters lives are left unresolved. There are a few moments where Anouk Aimee's tart with a heart overdoes the Marilyn impersonations (an affectation of the character rather than the actress) and Allan Scott's English dialogue sounds like it's been dubbed by a German reading phonetically, but they're fairly fleeting irritants and there's more than enough elsewhere to make up for it, not least Raoul Coutard's lovingly shot black and white Scope photography of Nantes.

The 2.35:1 widescreen transfer transfer, taken from a restored version, is good but not outstanding (though with the budgetary limitation the filmmakers had in 1960, it's doubtful it could look much better). Aside from the original theatrical trailer it also includes an extract from the documentary The World of Jacques Demy about the making of the film, though for the section dealing with the forgotten US sequel, Model Shop, you'll have to buy the documentary (available separately) itself. May 20, 2007

Wonderfully Romantic, Beautiful Anouk Aimee

Jacques Demy had a special way of viewing the world. He loved women and he was an incurable romantic. This delicate movie about a melancholy, gorgeoous woman in Nantes, France, who "dances" with sailors to earn a living while pining after her true love is a bittersweet poetic ode to the romantic in all of us. Anouk Aimee who was stunning years later in A Man and a Woman gave one of her best performances in this film, with a charming music score by Michel Legrand (and themes that would reappear in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). Lola was recently restored so it looks very good on this DVD but I wish they hadn't used yellow subtitles--very distracting--which is why I didn't give the film five stars. March 20, 2004

If you love "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", ...

If you love "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", then you must get "Lola". "Lola" is a good film on its own. However, seeing Lola will enrich your love of "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg". That's because you would better understand Roland Cassard (played by Marc Michel), the rich man who married the girl played by Catherine Deneuve in "The Umbrellas".

(See also the first review posted here by a viewer from NJ which is very informative). December 28, 2003

The Predecessor to "Umbrellas of Cherbourg"

Ever see Jacques Demy's lovely "Umbrellas of Cherbourg"? This is the film he made BEFORE Umbrellas - and the central character is Roland Cassard, the second man in Umbrellas. "Lola" stands by itself as a lovely introduction to Demy's world - boy meets girl, boy loses girl to her first love, boy goes off to smuggle diamonds (and reappears in Umbrellas as a diamond merchant). Very much worth seeing if you enjoy Umbrellas, and it could give you a new perspective on that excellent movie. December 14, 2001

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