Lorna Irvine reviews another entry in this year's French Film Festival.
French ennui never looked so stylish. Jacques Demy's debut feature film, while not big on character depth or plot development, has a gorgeous freewheeling swoop: every single b/w frame of the town of Nantes looks wonderful, complemented by Michel Legrand's pretty kitsch-pop (especially the theme tune).
Lola (real name Cecile) is a frustrated “cabaret dancer” of dubious talent, the kind of woman who sleeps in her false eyelashes. Anouk Aimee, who looks a little like a drag queen, invests her wiggly gold-digger with variously breathy OTT flirtation, melodrama and tenderness. Torn between three men: handsome angsty childhood sweetheart Roland (a convincing Marc Michel); wayward husband Michel (Jacques Harden) and feckless American sailor Frankie (Alan Scott, dreadful), she can be easily bought with whisky and cigarettes, and toy trumpets for her little son.
A parallel storyline simultaneously plays out, with her younger namesake Cecile (impressive child actor Annie Duperoux ) on the cusp of turning fourteen and already flirting with older men. What could have been a dodgy Lolita style sub-plot is instead well-observed, funny and not at all exploitative.
Although the key component of Lola is feminine wiles, Demy credits both child and woman with intelligence and charisma and an even-handed approach. It's the true spirit of the 60s writ large, camp as frilly knickers and not in any way a classic but diverting enough—likeable froth.
Shown at the GFT as part of the French Film Festival.
RSS