Die Geschichte der Laura M

David Hamilton established his name as a fashion photographer through the still, dreamy soft focus images of young girls, usually portrayed in muted colours, for which he has become famous. At some point he appears to have decided that this experience was all he needed to produce great movies, and he started to direct films that characteristically show all the same features as his fashion images. Unfortunately these were not generally well received and some critics have suggested that he has only a rudimentary appreciation of how to blend successive still images into an ongoing movie sequence. Personally I greatly enjoy his still fashion photography and this enjoyment is sufficient for me to also appreciate his films - overlooking any faults in their dynamics. His best known film is probably "Bilitis", a study of a young girl coming of age, but my preference is for "Laura", a film about a young girl modeling for a sculptor who is blinded in a fire. We can, I hope, ignore comments on the IMDb database which suggest that there is something sinister in Hamilton's preference for models and actresses who appear very young. In his films his objective is to create a story which has a strong emotional appeal but which is also visually beautiful to watch. My judgment is that Laura achieves this objective superbly. One sequence which haunts my memory as much as any other film sequence I have ever seen; comes towards the end of this film. It shows the sculptor, nearly blinded by the fire, returning to his almost finished sculpture whilst he explores the torso of his model with an extended finger trying to recreate in his mind the beauty that he can no longer see.

My recommendation would be to watch this film, which is not readily obtainable today, as soon as any opportunity arises.

POSTSCRIPT - added January 2005

This film has - to my surprise - now been released as a DVD. If these various very different assessments intrigue you in any way, why not buy a copy and add your comments to those already here?

Laura, Les Ombres De L'ete

David Hamilton does a great job expressing his seeming obsession with pre-pubescent ballet dancers in Laura, Les Ombres De L'ete. Possibly one of the worst (and most boring) "art house" pictures ever made, professional photographer/amateur filmmaker Hamilton drowns in his excessive use of soft focus, pseudo-artistic fadeouts, and nudity, devices employed to make up for the shallow plot.

After seeing teenaged Laura (Dawn Dunlap) at ballet class, sculptor Paul Thomas Wyler (James Mitchell) knows that he must sculpt this beautiful little girl, just as he had done with her mother Sarah (Maud Adams) 20 or so years prior. But Sarah can see through his superficial intentions and tries her best to keep her very curious daughter from posing for this oh-so-artistic womanizer.

Laura contains several sequences of excessive nudity (mostly of young Dunlap) and there is no doubt that Hamilton's subjects are quite attractive; in fact, the photo-shoot scenes, with Sarah taking endless pictures of her naked daugher prancing around (including a few gymnastic poses), are certainly provocative. But like Hamilton's other exploitative French productions, the story is built around these sequences and without them there is little else to interest the viewer. The film comes across as heavy-handed, pretentious, and, ultimately, empty. Some termed this soft-core when it was released but the film simply isn't graphic enough to qualify for the category. -- David Ross Smith

I was 12 when this came out, saw it later in the 80s and currently picked up the dvd at a charity shop and watched it again as an old man lol. It was nice to see something you saw as a young man and look back and realize how simple yet complex being young was in those days, we were kids but thought we were adults at 15, (Dawn was 17 in real life) most of us were experimenting or well past at that age, or at least my crowd was. I remember a few girls in grade 8 that looked 18 that were carrying on with our gym teacher on lunch breaks in his van doing the cheech and chong and get naked routine, (yes Julie L I'm referring to you ha ha)

As far as the movie goes it was all over the place and though it didn't seem to be put together well, it made sense. Some people have commented why the mother sent pics but wouldn't allow him to see Laura, well she wanted him to remember her and tempt him back using Laura's beauty since her marriage was dead. She wanted him for herself until she realized he only loves illusions of women. That's why she wasn't angry at her daughter or Paul when she allowed the daughter to say goodbye to her "ballet friends" but saw him instead before being sent away to school or wherever, mom knew it would be good for her to close that chapter and Paul was innocent enough. Another comment was how did Paul just walk in the ballet class and not get questioned? Well his helper was in the class and invited him along to see the girls, simple. As far as the age gap, looking at it with North American eyes it may seem a little too much, but in France you can drink wine at 12, date older men and it's nothing to look twice at, I think it was a nice slice of coming of age and reminding us we were all nubile and young at one point, we never change totally, just grow older.

I have read several technical critiques of this movie over the years, but it they all miss the mark for me, because this film provides something that very few films ever do - a gentle, poignant and tranquil approach into a world where the artistic, feminine and erotic merge in a manner that is generally well conceived and often breathtakingly beautiful.

David Hamilton is first and foremost a fine art photographer, and whilst there may be cinematic errors here, the visual content of the film allows one to pause and consider the wonder of the female form. I am delighted to own a copy of this visual hymn to some of the most delightful aspects of human life.

Howard Nowlan Fine Art Photographer, Cornwall, UK.

David Hamilton is so impressed with himself as a photographer, that he has convinced himself he can make a good film. Well, he's wrong. For example, I have a theory that he saw a good use of a fade out in a movie once and thought that if one fade out is good, then 75 of them must be great! Again, he's wrong. There is one sequence where Sarah (Maud Adams) is speaking to her daughter Laura (Dawn Dunlap) who is lying in bed. The camera shows Sarah talking and then slowly fades out to black only to shift to Laura in bed as she responded directly to her mother and continues the conversation. Maybe Hamilton felt this would make the dialogue have more resonance. Again, he's wrong. I've noticed that Hamilton is wrong a lot in this film. The movie fails on so many levels that I cannot begin to list them all here. All I can say is that you should avoid this movie at all costs. I give it a 1/10.