Lola<\/em> isn\u2019t a musical, but that\u2019s not for lack of trying. Demy initially wanted to tell the story in song, but the budget wouldn\u2019t allow for it, and that limitation lends another dimension of disappointment to a movie about people whose real-life romances never measure up to the Technicolor dreams they see on the silver screen. \u201cIn the movies, it\u2019s always beautiful,\u201d a character sighs. But everything in Lola<\/em> is beautiful, too \u2013 just in a slightly different way than what we see when the eminently unemployable Roland, fired again, ducks in to watch a Gary Cooper movie at a matinee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lola<\/em> was shot by the French New Wave\u2019s hero cinematographer Raoul Coutard on location in Demy\u2019s beloved city of Nantes, regarding the slightly seedy playground for sailors and prostitutes with casual enchantment in anamorphic widescreen Franscope. Sandwiched between Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s 1960 Breathless<\/em> and Agnes Varda\u2019s 1962 Cleo from 5 to 7<\/em>, Lola<\/em> has all the hallmarks of the Nouvelle Vague, full of cheeky references and allusions \u2013 Jean-Paul Belmondo\u2019s Michel Pocciard from the Godard picture gets name-checked, as does the Marquis de Sade \u2013 but curiously was not considered part of the movement\u2019s canon for many years until a spate of documentaries and restorations spearheaded by Varda. (She married Demy the year after Lola<\/em> was released, staying with him until his death in 1990 from AIDS-related illness.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marc Michel would reprise the role of Roland in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg<\/em>, singing about a girl named Lola who once broke his heart. Lola herself reappears in Demy\u2019s 1968 Model Shop<\/em>, single again, to remind us that all happy endings are fleeting. Filmmakers used to do fun stuff like this before we were saddled with \u201ccinematic universes.\u201d The picture is dedicated to Max Ophuls, whose 1950 La Ronde<\/em> was an obvious structural inspiration, not to mention Demy cribbing the title from his 1955 Lola Montes<\/em>. Continuing the hat-tips, the mighty Michel is conspicuously attired like director Jean-Pierre Melville. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Less polished than Demy\u2019s later efforts, there\u2019s something slightly janky about Lola<\/em> that makes the central preoccupations even more affecting. As everyone\u2019s lives fall short of their romantic fantasies, so the modest, black-and-white movie never quite becomes the musical extravaganza it so clearly wants to be. Even when indulging in the wildest, only-in-the-movies plot twists \u2013 including a character striking it rich after being stranded on a desert island \u2013 the Hollywood ending is staged in such a way that reminds us that happily ever after doesn\u2019t always include everybody.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Lola” is streaming on the Criterion Channel.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/lola2-1024x576.jpg\")
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It’s easy to see the misfit intellectual Roland as a stand-in for the filmmaker himself, with a lot of the same preoccupations as other young directors of the era. But I don\u2019t think audiences had ever met a character like Lola, the dancehall chanteuse embodied by Anouk Amiee in a performance if not larger than life, than a heck of a lot more memorable. Other movies would have presented her circumstances as tragic, or at least a cautionary tale, but Lola owns her own choices. She\u2019s waiting for her sweet Michel and knows he\u2019ll be back, in the meantime fulfilling her needs via flings with sailors like Frankie but always holding her heart pure. It\u2019s a shockingly sophisticated and sympathetic portrayal, especially given the era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n