Jacques Demy's Lola
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alan Scott, Anouk Aimée, Elina Labourdette, Jacques Harden, Marc MichelDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-12-09
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Fox Lorber
Movie Reviews of Jacques Demy's Lola
Movie Review: Not a masterpiece but very likeable
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Summary of Jacques Demy's Lola
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 HortonSimilar DVD Movies
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