I had several good reasons for choosing to watch Maurice Pialat‘s 1980 film ‘Lolou‘. Maurice Pialat came late to film directing. He was 43 in 1968 when he made his first feature film. The peak of the French Nouvelle Vague had passed, but that had only given him time to absorb its lessons. In fact, ‘Lolou’ looked in many ways like a Nouvelle Vague film, only it was made 20 years later. It stars Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert. Today, when we know how far each of them has come, it is a visual and intellectual pleasure to see them young, in top physical shape and on the rise of their formidable careers. ‘Lolou’ is also an interesting film in terms of its thematics and approach. A film that not everyone liked and still not everyone will like, but Pialat was not a director who was intereste to make himself liked in his films in the conventional and commercial sense of the term.
Nelly and Loulou, the heroes of the film, meet in a disco and are attracted to each other from their first dance. However, she is married and her husband, André, makes a scene of violent jealousy towards her. The connection between the bourgeois woman and the rascal she meets on the dance floor is inevitable. Nelly is bored with married life and annoyed by her dependence on André, who is both her husband and employer. Loulou attracts her as a man, but also as a way of approaching life. The one night stand, perhaps born of boredom, perhaps of revenge, turns into an unstable and dangerous bond, but passionate to the point of mutual dependence. In fact, Nelly exchanges the economic dependence dictated by social rules with one guided by passion and sensations. André tries to win Nelly back, but the triangle is unbalanced. Loulou fascinates the women around him, even if socially he is a complete failure – released from prison, refusing to work, living off theft or at the expense of the women who love him. Can the relationship with Nelly be for him a chance for recovery? But what does recovery mean? Is there such thing as the right path when it comes to passionate relationships?
The answer to this last question is, from the perspective of screenwriter Arlette Langmann and Maurice Pialat – a resounding NO. The director was known for his refusal to judge his characters and his talent for bringing life to the screen as it happens. Accusations of moral blindness were not long in appearing. This does not take away anything from the charm of the film, and in the perspective of the 46 years since its creation, it gives it a touch of modernity and even timelessness. Nelly and Loulou are living their moment. The techniques of the New Wave are rediscovered and used with maximum efficiency: the use of the mobile camera, the freedom of the actors to improvise and create emotion through what they experience on screen, the soundtrack with fragments of jazz, disco and strident yé-yé. The two lead performers fit admirably into the free framework proposed by Pialat. Isabelle Huppert was before the kind of the somber roles that would later characterize much of her career. The drive and naturalness with which the beautiful and fragile bourgeois throws herself into a relationship that has no chance of offering anything other than passion predicts them in a way, as does her ability to inspire emotion without excessive externalization. Gérard Depardieu is brilliant and charismatic in the role of the bad boy who knows that he destroys everything around him, including the women who love him, but does not want to and cannot choose another path. The triangle is completed by Guy Marchand, who makes André much more than just a character of a cheated and abandoned husband, adding a layer of corruption different from that of the other characters. Each of these characters has its lights, shadows and contrasts, just like anyone, just like us. Pialat does not judge or even suggest a judgment because he considers his viewers intelligent enough to appreciate for themselves if they want to. Or not.