Go back, if you will, to an odd scene in the middle of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg: Suave diamond merchant Roland Cassard is assuring Catherine Deneuve's mother that he's no stranger to the problems of love. "Autre fois ..." he begins to sing, initiating a new tune into the Michel Legrand score. "Once upon a time I loved a girl, her name was Lola, but she didn't love me." Umbrellas is a very stylized film, but in the middle of Cassard's lament, we cut back to a documentary-like shot of an old-fashioned shopping arcade, a quaint multi-level mall-like area.

Roland is practically the villain in Umbrellas, the unflappable, established older man who swoops down on the faltering romance between young Deneuve and her absent lover and steals the bride for himself. A mature reading of Umbrellas of course reveals that he isn't a villain at all, just another soul trying to find happiness. Lola tells his story.

Romance is both magical and mundane for Demy, sometimes the product of fate and sometimes of dumb luck. By the evidence of this movie, Romance has died from modern life because we live in the isolation of cars - everything that happens in Lola comes about by chance meetings between pedestrians on the streets, in shops. An overheard conversation might be followed by a polite introduction and the beginning of a relationship. The next stranger one passes could be a loved one from a few years back. The charm of Nantes is that everyone is a pedestrian walking on equal terms.

Most of Lola's lovers are still obsessed with their magical 'first love', magical precisely because of the individual's lack of experience. The older Roland Cassard in Umbrellas calmly moves in on Deneuve with the assurance of a man who holds all the cards. In Lola, he's still a lost soul unsure of his place in the world and looking for the magic woman to motivate him toward better things. He's far too genteel to be a bum, but he feels like one; he's willing to undertake a dangerous criminal smuggling job just to break his life's pattern of boredom.

Most of the characters of Lola are searching for the right mate, the key connections to make their lives work. Madame Desnoyers tries in vain to attract Roland; he's just too young for her. Good-hearted Frankie openly wants to enjoy Lola's company, and honestly tells her about his fiancée back in 'Chicago, Illinois'. The other girls at the El Dorado club secretly desire nothing more than the right man to walk in the door and carry them away. The older Jeanne (Margo Lion) wants her long-lost son to return some day. To young Cécile, Frankie is a way of escaping from her controlling mother. "Never contradict children" is a curious idea repeated twice in the dialogue. When mother puts too many roadblocks in the way of Cécile's dreams, the girl bolts.

Free-spirit Lola is of course the center of attention and the magic object of Love. She's all things to all men. We first see her as a sexy cabaret dancer who has usurped the name and costuming of The Blue Angel's Lola-Lola for her act. She's also the friendly port for the lonely man, sleeping again with the sailor passing through. Then she's the good mother, caring and loving to her happy little boy Yvón. In the face of ample evidence that lovers who disappear never return, Lola maintains a faithful vigil for her 'white knight', the father of her child.

The fantastic element enters Lola in the film's first scene, where we see Lola's Michel arrive in Nantes in his white Cadillac wearing a white suit and white Stetson. Roland attends a matinee of Return to Paradise, a title that indicates his desire to find his original first love Lola - he reports that the movie is about the little island Matareva in the South Seas. When explaining where he's been for seven years, Michel names the same island. It's a fanciful thread that attests to the illogical nature of our dreams and desires.

Lola has a huge heart and if not for her dream of Michel would surely be able to connect with the heartbroken Roland. Timing is everything. Roland loses but learns a lot about love from his experience. (Big Spoiler) When we last see him, he knows he's lost Lola and is off to pursue his criminal adventure. It apparently launches him in the diamond business and the success we see him enjoying in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The backstory of Lola is essential to understanding the depth of Umbrellas.

Exotic Anouk Aimée has a warmth that shines through her beauty (and her old-fashioned makeup). She repeated the role for Demy's fourth 'seaport' film (Nantes, Cherbourg, Rochefort, & Santa Monica) Model Shop, an American picture and now the only one not on DVD. Besides her appearances in Fellini epics, Aimée's other smash hit is of course A Man and A Woman. Savant has a soft spot for her sadistic Queen Bera in Robert Aldrich's The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Marc Michel was never as famous, but he made his mark in Jacques Becker's Le Trou as well as his Demy films. Michel is a great 'French' protagonist - he has the manners of a gentleman but in Lola something about his eyes and mouth suggest an unhappiness that might turn to cynicism. All of this youthful insecurity has been left behind by the time of Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Alan Scott plays the sailor Frankie; he looks like he could be Harrison Ford's older brother. A French actor dubs him, doing a good job with his lousy French accent but really making his 'American' English sound ridiculously false, a touch which becomes charming. Scott turned right around and played another sailor in Agnès Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7.

That said, the enchanting Lola is still strongly recommended. The removable subtitles are easy to read and there's an original trailer. Best of all is an excerpt from an Agnès Varda docu on Demy that fills its brief span with a number of choice stills, facts and remembrances, including a meeting of stars Aimée and Michel for the first time, 30 years later. Anouk loves Lola and greets Michel with an original line of dialogue from it. The excerpt also has a hand-written page of Michel's lyrics from Umbrellas. Roland's musical theme in the sequel is a carry-over from Lola; the sense of continuity while watching the earlier film makes us feel like we're discovering a lost love as well.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Lola rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Good -
Sound: Good
Supplements: Trailer, stills, bios, excerpt from docu The World of Jacques Demy
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: December 13, 2003

3. A note from Neil W. on Lola and 'Demyology', 12.15.03:
Hi Glenn, Thought you might like to know that the lovely arcade that features so prominently in Lola still exists, and has been beautifully preserved. It is called Le Passage Pommeraye and is situated not far from the apartment where Jacques Demy grew up in Nantes.