A Demy classic. You can clearly see his trademarks. The interconnections between characters reminds me of Demoiselles. The music by Legrand bares much assemblance to Parapluies. But still this is very much its own. It doesn't go for a sad or a happy ending, but rely on its own terms. HIghly recommendable for Demy or New Wave fans.

434

Demy's debut masterpiece, and clear precursor to "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," wonderfully combines the best kind of romance, a romance of the whole world, of life, with the best kind of realism, the realism of human beings struggling for the best and always susceptible to succumbing to their own weakness, their fatigue or their laziness. Demy's love of men and women, of the camera, of music, make him possibly the director with the greatest feeling for beauty, in every aspect of life and cinema.

A rumonous, luminous portrayal of foiled romances and social inter-connectedness only outshined by the work being done by Jean-Luc Godard at the time, Lola's one effortlessly affecting and arrestingly lensed work of French film art. It's all but a masterpiece.

Fluid camera movements, white light from windows, and one of the best slow-mo scenes ever all congeal to create this wonderful musical without music.

#453

I generally don't care for slo-mo, but Lola contains what I think is easily the best use of the technique on film. I pretty much fell for the film after that sequence. The cinematography is beautiful and the interconnectedness doesn't seem too gimmicky.

Meh

A charming, poetic mix of realism and movie fantasy thanks to Coutard's fluid (almost non-stop) camera akin to Max Ophuls, the jazzy score by Michel Legrand, and Demy's laid back direction.

A love pentagon? The film was lit quite strangely with almost every inside daytime scene having absurd amounts of daylight coming through the windows - they looked completely white at times! At times it looks quite fetching, at times absolutely beautiful, though I must confess that by the end of the film I was starting to tire of it a bit. The whole last half hour is great including a breathtaking bit of slow motion and a really good ending.

# 344

I'm not crazy about the French New Wave, it's usually too self-conscious, distant and formal, but relatively speaking Lola is one of the nicer examples of it. It's smart and cute and not too full of itself. Still, as with other French films of that era, I had some trouble connecting with or caring about the characters. The stone-faced Marc Michel's typically heartless acting does not compare well to that of warm-blooded quadragenerian Elina Labourdette, even in her minor role.

A beautiful film that does a wonderful job of interconnecting its characters to tell some stories about love. The contrast between the stories is what makes this work, as you see various types of love gained and lost, in different circumstances and without a clean cut ending. A little more depth to the relationships wouldn't have hurt, but it works very well as is.

Lovely. The film has an intriguing new wave-iness about it, I believe in great part of cinematographer Coutard (who worked on many of the landmark movies by Godard and Truffaut). You never quite know where the story is going to go next. The fact that it was originally supposed to be a musical, and the heavy interconnectedness of the characters, makes this a precursor to Rochefort, although I actually prefer Lola. Funny, sad, gentle and real. The fair scene in particular is magnificent.

We've been over my dislike of interconnections before. We've been over my dislike of Demy's actual camera work as well. Without his colors or his muse the film ends up feeling like some odd amalgam of early hollywood and the new wave and it fails. The camera never stops moving for a second in the entire film.

An early Demy gem, it's a shame more people don't know who this guy is. This is beautifully shot by one of my favorite cinematographers, Coutard, and the B&W really goes with what is going on in the film. I didn't really identify with the protagonist but it didn't matter, this film had a lot going for it.

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