Lola Montes: BD Review
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Page 1 of 3 Criterion / 114 Minutes / 1955 / Unrated / Street Date: February 16, 2010
Lola Montes' regal arrival on Blu-ray Disc begins with a prologue, a cursory explanation of why the film was so controversial upon its release and why the 2008 restoration of the film from its tattered, studio-constructed form to its original, loopy, ecstatic shape is so imperative. Released to shocks and gasps in 1955 - its presentation of amour and such wasn't exactly blue, but the film's non-sequential storytelling scheme certainly was - Lola Montes was quickly returned back to its studio, where it was hacked and trimmed down (read: brutalized), and as such, its reputation as master director Max Ophuls' last finished picture was not universally respected. Yet this reconstruction of the picture - supposedly completely in tune with the original desires of Ophuls - not only liberates the film from a destiny of vault dust, it springs the damned thing to vibrant, overflowing life. Lola Montes is an epic, insane fantasia, a movie that stuns you at its onset, then keeps the hallucinogenics coming throughout its two-hour running time: It's not a 'trippy' movie, not an intellectually detached one - it simply acts as the equivalent of a really strong, delicious cocktail. From the first sip, you know it's going to be good, but by the end of the glass, your head is spinning with glee.
In the picture, Martine Carol plays the eponymous Lola, a courtesan and dancer who traverses across Europe, going from lover to lover and from one potential business opportunity to the next. She beds musicians (an affair is had with Franz Lizt), the king of Bavaria, and a revolving door of other viable partners as she plots her ever-evolving plans toward global notoriety. Yet Lola Montes is no biopic: The whole affair pivots around an outrageous circus act, with ringleader Peter Ustinov explaining Lola's exploits with a cast of thousands whirling, juggling and tumbling around him - Lola herself even plays a pivotal role in this bombast, both participating in the act and as the big high-diving finale. Lola Montes is not a notably complicated film - its narrative, though told in fantastically baiting fits and spurts, is nothing intrinsically new - but it is, however, quite complex. I say this because Ophuls uses Lola Montes as a canvas to really paint with bold strokes, an excuse to tell what in other hands would have been a same-old-same-old moral tale of love, lust and golddigging into a veritable spinning top of glamour, color and panache. More experiential than cerebral, Lola Montes truly is a cinematic marvel of gargantuan proportions, a swoon-inducing tale that is finally available to the masses in the shape and form it was originally intended. We are quite lucky, indeed. |
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