Lola (1961 film)


Lola is a 1961 romantic drama film, the debut film directed by Jacques Demy as a tribute to director Max Ophüls, described by Demy as a "musical without music". Anouk Aimée starred in the title role. The film was restored and re-released by Demy's widow, French filmmaker Agnès Varda.
The names of the film and title character were inspired by Josef von Sternberg's 1930 film Der blaue Engel, in which Marlene Dietrich played a burlesque performer named "Lola Lola".

Plot

Lola takes place in the Atlantic coastal city of Nantes, France. A young man, Roland Cassard, is wasting his life away until he has a chance encounter with Lola, a woman he knew as a teenager before World War II, who is now a cabaret dancer. Though Roland is quite smitten with her, Lola is preoccupied with her former lover Michel, who abandoned her after impregnating her seven years earlier. Also vying for Lola's heart is American sailor Frankie, whose affection Lola does not return.
Struggling for work, Roland gets involved in a diamond-smuggling plot with a local barber. Cécile, a 13-year-old girl, crosses paths with Roland; in many ways she reminds him of Lola, whose real name is also Cécile. In the end, Michel returns to Nantes, apparently very successful and hoping to marry Lola, just as she is leaving for another job in Marseille. She goes away with Michel as she always said she would.

Critical reception

Lola received moderate reviews from critics. The Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum said it was "among the most neglected major works of the French New Wave" and "in some ways best feature."
Travis Hooper of Film Freak Central gave it 3.5/4 stars, saying that he believed that it "doesn't have the intellectual rigour of those other films". He went on to say that it "is stronger for feeling, showing that we need more than the confirmation of the worst if we intend to make it through our lives intact."
Not Just Movies gave Lola an A rating, mostly for Demy's "New Wave-cum-classical style", which "creates a self-contained world that gives a softly lift haze to reality as characters constantly aim for each other and miss, sometimes passing within mere inches of each other before carrying on or being redirected."

Awards and nominations