Lola

Jaques Demy, 1960
We have Demy's usual wide, widescreen shots, arcing crane shots and pans. The camera moves around easily, occasionally speedily under the ever brilliant freedom of Raoul Coutard, here harnessed to a large but graceful sensiblity.
Demy mixes in 2's and 3's with singles, suiting the editing and precise framing for the dramatic mood. Coutard also overexposes the film, with powerful effects of light through windows. There is a fine moment when there is a change of place at the table solely to give us some great dramatic backlighting, a sillouhette.
With the music and camera we have a smooth flow of plot and development, with non-diegtic breaks into dances, and diversions from the plot in little conversations and references here and there. There isn't a plot so much established; there are few goals or motivations for a while, and we don't have a key piece of dramatic information until half way through. After that it does sort itself out, with deadlines.
Demy's world is dramatic and small, chaarcters meeting by 'chance', and being in the same locations. With classical stautues around, he gives grace and dignity to lives and stories often portrayed grimly.
My favourite aspect of this film was the casual mention of gangsters, the other world, of the movies, that is there. This ties in with the end, where melodrama and absurdity reference the movies, that classic Hollywood fiction. It would nearly wonder if Demy had not realised he had been subverting this all along; and then we have the last shot, a small piece of pathos, powerful for its miniscule nature.