Taken inspirations from Josef von Sternberg’s THE BLUE ANGEL (1930), both Jacques Demy and Rainer Werner Fassbinder manufacture their own fantasies about its iconic protagonist Lola (played by Marlene Dietrich), a demimondaine of a sort, bewitches and brings an upstanding man to her heels.

Made in 1961 as his feature debut, Demy’s LOLA is a black-and-white “she is not that into you” rom-com à la nouvelle vague. Lola (Aimée) is an itinerant cabaret dancer, who wishfully awaits the comeback of her lover Michel (Harden), the father of her child. In Nantes, she bumps into her childhood friend Roland (Michel), an ennui-stricken young man who carries a torch for her. The reunion reignites Roland’s hope of joie de vivre, only Lola cannot reciprocate his feelings, but nothing major is at stake, Roland isn’t the possessive kind, in fact, Lola’s refusal actually eventuates his decision to depart, perhaps to Cherbourg since the character reappears in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (1964) and slumps into another ill-assorted love affair.

Aimée’s Lola is all froufrou femininity, coquetry is embedded in her chromosome but Demy also infuses her with an honesty that transcends secular concerns. Life is hard, but it doesn’t affect her, Lola can cavalierly juggle rearing a child with parrying off dalliances, including one from American sailor Frankie (Scott). She inherits the modernity of Dietrich’s Lola and magnifies it, it is all outward, modish, aims to inculcate audience a woman’s liberation of being true to her feelings (but can anyone really knows one’s “true” feelings?). But inwardly, Lola is a harbor, like the town she fetches up in, she waits for one day when her ships comes in. Her happiness is contingent on a fanciful wish, the lover who inseminated her and then left her 7 years ago coming back as a made man, and Demy is too romantic not to pay her dues, it is a storybook ending for his Lola, if not just for Michel Legrand’s lilting cadence.

Meantime, Demy nimbly orchestrates secondary plots around, Roland crossing path with a widow and her teenage daughter (Labourdette magnificently telegraphs the widow’s disillusion and perturbation without making her a ridicule) can be read as a deja vu of his past with Lola, and Cécile (Dupéroux), the 13-year-old daughter (who shares the same name of Lola), has a La Ronde style encounter with Frankie (yes, Demy’s LOLA is an open tribute to Max Ophüls), whose pending departure leaves something indelible in her impressionable soul, a cyclical pattern perpetuates.

For Fassbinder, his LOLA, his antepenultimate feature film, sets a moral backbone in the dead center and then topples it with a bang. The time is 1957, in the West Germany town Coburg, Lola (Sukowa) is the most alluring call girl in the brothel owned by Schukert (a smarmy Adorf), who is also the leading local building contractor, and the father of Lola’s young daughter, who is tended by Lola’s mother (Baal).

While the post-WWII reconstruction is in vogue, Schubert and co. (including the mayor, the chief of police) basks in shady gainful benefits, until the advent of the new building commissioner Von Bohm (Mueller-Stahl), a blue-eyed ramrod hailed from Eastern Prussia. Divorced and cultured, Von Bohm seems incorruptible and pulls out all stops to bring morality to his business. Intrigued by Von Bohm’s reputation, Lola meets him under her real name, puts him under her charm, but when the cat is let out of the bag, what will Von Bohm do?

Fassbinder has no scruples to satirize the ever scandalous falling-in-love-with-a-prostitute trope, and he does so with flair and tongue-in-cheek irreverence, when the dust settled, things are miraculously squared away, the status quo remains, even Von Bohm is made the co-owner of the brothel, how about that? Stiff morality is frown upon, and Lola gets what she wants, so fully and exuberantly embodied by Sukowa, she radiates with an aura of her Teutonic fiber, bedazzled by veils, furs, earrings and organdies. Subversively, Sukowa’s Lola is nothing if not inviolable, a true Fassbinder heroine head and shoulders above her seedy milieu. So in the end of the day, you don’t feel sorry for Von Bohm, who is astutely and vigorously portrayed Mueller-Stahl, but give him your blessings, their union is a godsend. Also, a squirrel-like Helga Feddersen (wearing a pair of high heels with contrasting colors, how fashionable!) is a lollapalooza as Von Bohm’s secretary Miss Hettich, hilarious without self-consciousness, the role in a cliché but Feddersen is a comedienne on steroids.

Visually, adorned by fluorescent strip lights and neon-lit backlights, predominantly showered in magenta-tinged hew, LOLA is Fassbinder’s most extraordinary polychromatic experiment, even in the two-shots, two different-colored lighting sources are deployed, leveling at either characters. Might the crimson curtains of the brothel be the provenance of David Lynch’s “the red room” in Twin Peaks? It is all too fascinating to look at, a depraved yet ebullient lifeworld lensed through Fassbinder’s far-out retina.

referential entries: Demy’s DONKEY SKIN (1970, 4.3/10); Fassbinder’s VERONIKA VOSS (1982, 7.2/10); Josef von Sternberg’s THE BLUE ANGEL (1930, 7.4/10); Max Ophüls’ LA RONDE (1950, 6.5/10).

Title: Lola

Year: 1961

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: France, Italy

Language: France, English

Director/Screenwriter: Jacques Demy

Music: Michel Legrand

Cinematography: Raoul Coutard

Editing: Anne-Maire Cotret

Cast:

Anouk Aimée

Marc Michel

Alan Scott

Elina Labourdette

Annie Duperoux

Jacques Harden

Margo Lion

Catherine Lutz

Corinne Marchand

Anne Zamire

Rating: 7.8/10

Title: Lola

Year: 1981

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: West Germany

Language: German, English, French, Latin

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Screenwriters: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pea Fröhlich, Peter Märthesheimer

Music: Freddy Quinn, Peer Raben

Cinematography: Xaver Schwarzenberger

Editing: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Juliane Lorenz

Cast:

Barbara Sukowa

Armin Mueller-Stahl

Mario Adorf

Matthias Fuchs

Helga Feddersen

Hark Bohm

Karin Baal

Ivan Desny

Elisabeth Volkmann

Karl-Heinz von Hassel

Udo Kier

Güther Kaufmann

Y Sa Lo

Christine Kaufmann

Rosel Zech

Isolde Barth

Rating: 8.2/10

看完电影首先是震憾，它居然能把 这些形形色色的人物的 命运的交织起伏 如此 自然，不留痕迹地地编织在一个看似平淡的小故事里。 这是真正的四两拨千斤，

男主 Rolande 日子过得浑浑噩噩，还刚丢了工作，街上偶遇童年女伴Lola，重燃了对她的爱情和对生活的信心。但Lola 对抛弃她外出挣钱的 美国水手Michel念念不忘，七年了仍在等她回来，对Rolande的热切求爱 招架不住，只想和他保持纯友谊。Lola同时还被另一个美国水手Frankie追求

在另外一条线索上，Rolande在书店偶遇夫人Desnoyers和她的未成年女儿Cecile，因为Cecile恰好是Lola的原名，以借字典为由，他去了这对母女家几次，Desnoyers是单亲妈妈，明显对Rolande有意，但是后者无动于衷。与此同时，Lola在街上偶遇了Frankie, 并疯狂地迷恋上了他，但是他很快要回芝加哥

母女这条线 可以说是神来之笔，首先Cecile 和Lola的人生 不可思议地相似，有着相同的名字，都在未成年时爱上了一个美国水手，但也都离她们而去。 这可以理解为 另外一种新颖的方式来代替 俗套的 回忆，Cecile就是少女时期的Lola。也可以理解为是 生命的循环往复，Cecile 的故事在一遍遍地重演。Lola的王子Michel 衣锦还乡了，Cecile将来能否有机会与Frankie重逢呢？

整部电影都在讲生命的遗憾与错付，那些小小的失落和未竟的渴望。

Rolande对Lola的感情显然是一种不切实际的寄托，他把她当成了一种逃避灰暗现实的出口，他甚至在和她的未来还不确定时就擅自决定辞去危险的走私工作留下来，这当然是一厢情愿的“直男意淫“。

Lola和Michel的故事 则像是一个带着灰暗阴影的童话。Michel 当时是抛妻弃子 出去挣钱，在这七年中Lola也并不就一直保持忠贞，她甚至还会和长得像他的男人上床。 导演设置这样的结局更像是一种美好的向往吧

Rolande 是下一个Michel。在各种草蛇灰线的叙事中暗含了后者就是前者的 命运的轮回

这种 陌生人之间命运的偶然联系 很容易让人想到基耶洛夫斯基 的电影，如《两生花》 里面的双女主，如同有心灵感应。

[未完待续]

米歇尔开着顶牛逼的车带着大把的钞票穿着白刷刷的西装回来了，这正是罗拉期待已久的，夜总会的姐们感动一团，可这不是喜剧，那是什么，人生的无助的循环和无意义的重复。我一直想这个片子要讲什么，喜剧式的对白、可笑的人物、滑稽尴尬的行为，当然，一点不可笑，它是德米对人们的无助的一种无奈的揶揄，非此幽默不足以消减因人的无助和软弱带来的寻求意义的困惑。片子讲了许多循环和重复，小塞瑟尔和大塞瑟尔的同名、小塞瑟尔的母亲和大塞瑟尔的守寡以及对某个人的期待、米歇尔的白西装和弗兰克的白色海军服并不偶然的巧合、小塞瑟尔与白海军服弗兰克一起过生日和离别的“高速摄影”/慢镜头（当然是塞瑟尔和弗兰克从前离别的重演和对照，这一对照似在不经意间“插播”，并非是诗意再现往事，而是表现循环和无常）。米歇尔回来了，并不值得感动，不是还有另一个人杜萨尔走了吗，杜萨尔悄悄地带走了塞瑟尔本来或可稍息的稳定的情感，塞瑟尔还不是没有“团圆”？人之来去，不是“你悄悄地来了，又悄悄地走了”的伤感，是比“伤感”的情感要自省的多，它是跳出来看的，它的揶揄和幽默显示出更豁达而冷静的态度。循环和重复使得“重聚”没什么重量，自然，就指向了生命的无常和荒诞。换言之，生活中的重聚并不可以令人惊讶和兴致勃勃，因为，它在人生的孤独的长途中不足为道。

德米在音乐往往在画面还没提示出什么新的情节时，便开始造势了，譬如即将来临的犯罪交易，单看画面和人物，似乎是没有丝毫准备的。印象深的一个画面，塞瑟尔一路拾阶而上，音乐乘势大作，这时的情绪也是将爆发的样子。音乐的使用，显示出对叙事的很强的控制性。

1.影片开头的短暂配乐取自Max Ophüls的Le Plaisir。
2.同时显出字幕à Max Ophüls。
3.接着有贝多芬第七交响曲，末尾又相呼应。
4.片名Lola让人联想到Max Ophüls的Lola Montès。
5.女主角的形象与影片提到的玛莉莲·梦露的形象的对比 法国文化与美国文化的冲突 美国水手与热爱文学的法国失业者
7.人物关系的对称性：
法国男性—一对母子与一对母女—美国男性
8.二战的影响
9.法国电影血统：末尾三声连呼Michel在一部更早的著名的法国电影《禁忌的游戏》末尾中出现过。