Événement

Lola @ the Classic French Film Festival

A cigar-smoking man in a Stetson gazes out at the Nantes waterfront, then drives his high-finned American convertible past sailors out on a spree. Dreamer Roland (Marc Michel) eventually wanders into a cabaret where Anouk Aimée's Lola is performing, dressed in an homage to Marlene Dietrich. And then the meetings, link-ups, and unknowing near-misses begin. Jacques Demy's first feature, shot in black-and-white CinemaScope by the great Raoul Coutard, evokes the most artlessly delicate of romantic atmospheres, simultaneously orchestrating repeated patterns, interlocking relationships, and carefully choreographed outrageous coincidences.

The New York Times enthuses: "'Lola' follows a half-dozen ordinary folks in the south of France as they pursue their amorous fantasies, and Demy's style is lighter than air, brazenly artificial. He makes no intellectual demands on the viewer: he aims to seduce, not to challenge. And if you give in to his sweet nothings, you may even feel slightly embarrassed. That's the power of 'Lola.' Alone among the early products of the New Wave, it gives the audience the exquisite sense of surrendering to a guilty pleasure."

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Joe Williams, film critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.