gsygsy
There aren't enough superlatives to describe how I feel about this stunning work of art. It's one of the movies that means so much to me, I find it hard to write about it. Let's ditch bitching about Martine Carol. She is excellent. I have never understood the snooty, patronising negativity about her performance. When an actor plays a king or queen, it's not required that they act royally. They absolutely must not do that, unless it's for comic effect. Otherwise their status is undermined. Their royalty is shown by the deference of others. The same is true here. Lola has the effect she has because we see her having the effect. The actress doesn't have to act charismatically - as if anyone could!The photography, set and costumes, script, music, performances, and of course the direction: wonderful. Anton Walbrook, what a pleasure it is to see him here, in another of his long line of superb performances. And there's Pauline Dubost, Henri Guisol, Ivan Desny, Oskar Werner...Lola's tale is a cautionary one of the risks of living life on your own terms. But there are people who can do no other, and Lola is one of those.Max Ophuls, the visionary director, was another.The greatness of this film humbles me and inspires me: human beings can rise to these heights of creativity. The proof is here. It is LOLA MONTES.
jonathan-577
Max Ophuls' final film, which I viewed in its restored German version, is quite the visual onslaught in widescreen - the extravagant framing device depicting the historic bed-hopper as a circus 'freak' among many, many acrobats and jugglers is the work of someone slaving feverishly to dazzle us. The distanced spectacle sucks us in, and it all looks great, but the toil of the film-making efforts end up deflecting attention from Lola herself - maybe Martine Carol isn't up for the job like everyone says, but more importantly all that metaphor stuff seems to crowd out time she could use to draw us in. The dalliance in the palace through the third act supplies Ophuls' requisite plot disfigurement - everything I've seen except Madame De... has SOME kind of unsatisfying ding in the arc. And the 'sumptuous' color compositions - which are pretty overwhelming in and of themselves, especially when the restoration is working from top sources - seem to limit the opportunities for the big Ophuls Camera Swoops that usually lively things up.
pushnlacs
Lola Montes- Essentially the true story of a women who kept more lovers than is generally accepted as proper, the fact that she lived during the 19th century only made this an even bigger ordeal.Her dream was to be a dancer but this never really worked out and in the end her life story, due to people of the time being attracted to such scandal, is used as a circus attraction. It is through this circus performance and flash backs that we see her life story and what lead to her being a circus performer.Honestly when all was said and done I was much less bored with the film than I would have expected. The film goes by at a decent pace though nothing of much excitement happens.Ophuls direction is rather elegant. He creates some simple yet beautiful shots. Martine Carol in the role of Lola isn't what I'd usually call beautiful in a traditional sense but she does have a captivating quality to her.
gosparx
Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge!" owes something to Lola Montes.The movie has its moments -- it worked for me as a meditation on the exploitation of love, and the exploitation of despair. Some have commented on the wooden Martine Carol performance, but I thought that was the point. Lola Montes is a blank slate onto whom her admirers project what they want to see. She's vibrant and captivating only to men who want her. And why do they want her? The endless stream of men willing to pay a dollar to kiss her hand -- they want her only because so many other men have wanted her, famous men. It's not about getting a piece of Lola the person, it's about getting a piece of Lola the brand. She's a product (in a cage!) marketed by Ustinov. They have a creepily symbiotic relationship -- the huckster needs his product, and the product needs to be sold. Before she sells out to Ustinov, Lola lives for love, exploits it for all she's worth, and is exploited for all she's worth. In despair, she turns to Ustinov's show, where she daily and literally recreates her fall from the heights of romance to the tawdry center ring, where her life is exposed to question and ridicule from the cheap seats. Not a bad flick. I thought the cheesy storytelling techniques -- the flashbacks, the elements of predictability (of course she's going to meet the King of Germany) her "dangerously weak heart" and the concerned doctor -- were ham handed by design, slyly self-mocking. Lola Montes is a movie worth seeing and thinking about.
AD
