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 Fr?hlich, Peter M?rthesheimer

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

看完電影首先是震憾，它居然能把 這些形形色色的人物的 命運的交織起伏 如此 自然，不留痕跡地地編織在一個看似平淡的小故事里。 這是真正的四兩撥千斤，

男主 Rolande 日子過得渾渾噩噩，還剛丟了工作，街上偶遇童年女伴Lola，重燃了對她的愛情和對生活的信心。但Lola 對拋棄她外出掙錢的 美國水手Michel念念不忘，七年了仍在等她回來，對Rolande的熱切求愛 招架不住，只想和他保持純友誼。Lola同時還被另一個美國水手Frankie追求

在另外一條線索上，Rolande在書店偶遇夫人Desnoyers和她的未成年女兒Cecile，因為Cecile恰好是Lola的原名，以借字典為由，他去了這對母女家?guī)状?，Desnoyers是單親媽媽，明顯對Rolande有意，但是后者無動于衷。與此同時，Lola在街上偶遇了Frankie, 并瘋狂地迷戀上了他，但是他很快要回芝加哥

母女這條線 可以說是神來之筆，首先Cecile 和Lola的人生 不可思議地相似，有著相同的名字，都在未成年時愛上了一個美國水手，但也都離她們而去。 這可以理解為 另外一種新穎的方式來代替 俗套的 回憶，Cecile就是少女時期的Lola。也可以理解為是 生命的循環(huán)往復(fù)，Cecile 的故事在一遍遍地重演。Lola的王子Michel 衣錦還鄉(xiāng)了，Cecile將來能否有機會與Frankie重逢呢？

整部電影都在講生命的遺憾與錯付，那些小小的失落和未竟的渴望。

Rolande對Lola的感情顯然是一種不切實際的寄托，他把她當(dāng)成了一種逃避灰暗現(xiàn)實的出口，他甚至在和她的未來還不確定時就擅自決定辭去危險的走私工作留下來，這當(dāng)然是一廂情愿的“直男意淫“。

Lola和Michel的故事 則像是一個帶著灰暗陰影的童話。Michel 當(dāng)時是拋妻棄子 出去掙錢，在這七年中Lola也并不就一直保持忠貞，她甚至還會和長得像他的男人上床。 導(dǎo)演設(shè)置這樣的結(jié)局更像是一種美好的向往吧

Rolande 是下一個Michel。在各種草蛇灰線的敘事中暗含了后者就是前者的 命運的輪回

這種 陌生人之間命運的偶然聯(lián)系 很容易讓人想到基耶洛夫斯基 的電影，如《兩生花》 里面的雙女主，如同有心靈感應(yīng)。

[未完待續(xù)]