While Jacques Demy’s only English language film, 1969’s Model Shop, is not great, it tempts. It ambles from Hollywood Boulevard to Santa Monica, from Beverly Hills to Malibu and loafs from a girlfriend’s apartment to a car garage, from a pink plush Rent-A-Model to band practice. “You don’t buy a $1500 car just ‘cause you like it. You don’t have a cent and you don’t even work! You get a skateboard!” a girl scolds her boy at the start. Conversations move in and out of burnout meters, never quite changing our protagonist, George — a ne’re-do-well who is about to get drafted. He meets a mysterious French woman Lola, played by Anouk Aimée, and seeks out one last human bond, if that.
What Demy does so masterfully is capture LA’s devil-may-care lure. Undoubtedly he was smitten with the city’s airy and delayed character. After all, the very first image is a blonde in bed, sleeping in. Her room is a mix of beach and artifice, bohemia and Barbie: piles of records, hanging stockings, a wig on its stand, an orange bra, a striped towel, neutrals and neons, both. Los Angeles is the film’s most palpable antihero. Los Angeles is the slacker, the layabout, the intrigue and the crush.
