Jackson Booth-Millard
Before musical film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, its director Jacques Demy (The Young Girls of Rochefort) made this French film, so it was only right I saw the predecessor film, also in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Basically in the Atlantic coastal city of Nantes, France, until a chance encounter young man Roland Cassard (Marc Michel) (he returned as the same character in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), he meets a woman he knew previously as a teenager before World War II, now cabaret dancer Lola (BAFTA nominated Anouk Aimée). Though he has feelings for her, she is trying to reconnect with the man who abandoned her and her seven year old son years ago, her former lover Michel (Jacques Harden), but she also has the attention of American sailor Frankie (Alan Scott), but he is failing to win her heart as she does not share the same feelings for him. Unable to find work in the city Roland resorts to crime and gets involved in a plot with the local barber to smuggle diamonds, and he later crosses paths with teenage girl Cécile Desnoyers (Annie Duperoux), she is very similar in her life to Lola, who coincidentally shares the same real first name. Michel, apparently now very successful, returns to Nantes hoping to marry Lola, but she is leaving for Marseille for another job, Roland is also leaving town for his reasons, they do not cross paths again. Also starring Elina Labourdette as Madame Desnoyers, Margo Lion as Jeanne, Michel's Mother and Yvette Anziani as Madame Frédérique. The acting of Aimée as the innocent and bored single mother is memorable enough, and Michel as the character I remember from the follow up film was almost as charming as he becomes later, the story was a little slow and hard for me to keep up with a little, and I didn't laugh all that much, but the satirical and realistic 1930's setting and imagery is great, I prefer the follow up more, but this is a watchable romantic comedy drama. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film from any Source. Very good!
Michael Neumann
Jacques Demy's effervescent romance is one of the best and most enduring examples of the stylistic explosion since called the French New Wave, but compared to Resnais' often-tortured exposition and Godard's turgid socio-political cul-de-sacs this playful look at the mysteries of first love is alive with an almost irresistible vitality. Demy pursues with tongue-in-cheek determination the idea that life can be a series of happy accidents, weaving several interlocked plot threads into a delicate web of chance and coincidence to illustrate the casual symmetry of life and love. At the heart of the film is a young cabaret dancer waiting (against reason) for her American sailor to return, whose sometimes sad, sometimes comic story is oddly echoed in the lives of everyone around her. It's as if the world were an endless progression of dancers and sailors, destined to mingle and mix in a never-ending attempt to rekindle that first, unforgettable spark of passion.
nycritic
Romance as a genre encompasses dreamy passions and interconnecting love affairs. LOLA is as a whole, the embodiment of romance rising in the flesh as Anouk Aimee, clearly posing as Venus/Aphrodite and with a heart to end all hearts and a physicality that is alluring, dark, carnal, but a dream morphing into an ethereal reality. She, as Lola, is a fallen woman who doesn't wallow too much over her fate but enchants everyone who crosses her path; she pines for the man who left her with child -- Miohel -- while Roland Cassard, who would later marry Catherine Deneuve's character in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, floats in as one of Lola's many suitors, which also include an American sailor. Lola is pure stream of consciousness made breezy romance, barely having its plot but existing purely on the notion that somehow these characters have their counterparts and are meant to meet them along the way, even when there will be heartbreak and some important decisions to be made. Jacques Demy, to me one of the greatest romantics of the 20th Century, created his trilogy with this excellent little piece that most certainly still has all the qualities of a musical without music and hasn't aged as it approaches its 50th year.
Daryl Chin (lqualls-dchin)
Jacques Demy's first feature is a totally unreal confection, a real movie-movie about characters living their lives in dreams and fantasies, all derived from the movies. It's a pure escapist film, shot on location in Nantes with Raoul Coutard's most dazzling black-and-white cinematography. Every character in the movie is tinged with magic, sometimes explicitly, as when Lola (Anouk Aimee) is photographed so that she's wreathed in light, or when Cecile (Annie Duperoux) has her outing at the fair and it's shown in slow motion. It's a deliberately "silly" movie, and that's what's charming about it.
AD
