Critics reviews

If sex is evoked, particularly in the Lola-Frankie couple and the humorous reference to the Marquis de Sade's Justine in the bookshop scene, Lola is more interested in romantic love and barely hides a deep pessimism on the topic (hence the frequent use of the term bittersweet in describing the film). Lola is above all a reflection on the fragility of love, expressed through the transient nature of each character's trajectory—almost everyone is on the move, recently arrived, or about to leave.

The Ophüls question ("Quelle heure est-il?") is always in the air, along with the tilting, craning and tracking that link and sever feelings. "There's happiness in simply wanting happiness," sighs Lola, who's rewarded with an only-in-the-movies happy ending that barely skirts feyness thanks to Demy's triste-harlequin understanding that one character's happiness might be another's melancholy.

Now, having re-watched this film after some three years, everything that I once found petulant and irritating is now sweetly idealistic and romantic. And Lola, with her wide-eyed exuberance (a far cry from Anouk's stern scorned wife in 8 ½), is a firefly, lighting up the screen with her charm, always moving, gasping. At times she teeters on the brink of becoming annoying, but Aimee manages to ground the character in a true depth of feeling.

In between café blah-blah and wistful set pieces, Lola toys with a blatantly underdeveloped criminal subplot, but Demy is far more interested in evoking the excitement of first love and old movies than orchestrating a shoot-'em-up. The sailors on leave have their own On the Town moves and Michel Legrand's score bubbles up under the most banal interactions. Like a Hollywood fairy tale, Lola is always threatening to turn into a musical. Its edge comes from the fact that it never quite does.

Its breezy tone, narrative coincidences, circling camera, and overall brio suggest a certain superficiality, but at its heart lies a wistful awareness that happiness in love is both transient and largely dependent on chance. Very beautifully shot, in widescreen and luminous black-and-white, it is also formally astonishing, with all the minor characters serving as variations on the central couple.

Jacques Demy's first and in some ways best feature (1961), shot in exquisite black-and-white 'Scope by Raoul Coutard, is among the most neglected major works of the French New Wave. . . . Chock-full of film references (to The Blue Angel, Breathless, Hollywood musicals, the work of Max Ophuls, etc) and lyrically shot in Nantes, the film is a camera stylo love letter, and Michel Legrand's lovely score provides ideal nostalgic accompaniment.