LOLA (Jacques Demy, 1960)

With a tip of the hat to Marlene Dietrich’s character in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel (1930), Anouk Aimée dazzles as Cécile, a dancer who goes by the name of Lola at work, where she entertains American G.I.s, in Jacques Demy’s first feature and enduring black-and-white masterpiece, Lola. Nervously breathless, this Lola is like a tremulous shadow flickering as gorgeous light across the screen; the essence of her presence is that Lola seems perpetually poised to take her leave.
     Seven years earlier Michel, the love of her life, abandoned Cécile without explanation; she has sex with a sailor who reminds her of him. Frankie, headed home to Chicago, thinks he is in love with Lola, who crosses paths with out-of-work childhood friend Roland, who is definitely in love with her. But Lola’s heart belongs to Michel.
     The action unfolds in Nantes, whose streets and structures contribute—pardon the oxymoron—a dreamy realism to what critic Roy Armes has aptly called “a gay, lighthearted work, a sort of musical without songs and dances.” Indeed, Demy has fashioned a musical film, one that is richly scored by Michel Legrand (and there is one sung song, and another melody that in the States is sung as “Watch What Happens”), and that has dancing around the edges. In anticipation of Demy’s other masterpiece, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), the dialogue seems poised in the direction of being sung. At film’s end, coincidentally, three characters are headed to Cherbourg.
     Characters keep running in to one another, have “doubles” that constantly remind others of them and of heartache.
     Lola’s gaiety seems to encapsulate the comedy of human behavior, the ways in which we cope with longing, loss and practical responsibilities; it is the mask we wear amidst the tragedy of life.