Model Shop

This little seen Jaques Demy film is no lost masterpiece but is well worth catching. One of the most notable features is how well it captures a look of late sixties LA rarely seen in other movies. The story though is slight and the acting is uneven. Psychedelic rock fans should watch it to see the legendary Spirit - their music is on the soundtrack and they have a few lines. To sum up - an oddly interesting film not a great one.

This film is not the worst. Gary Lockwood as lost young architect George Matthews and Anouk Aimee as Lola, a stage name for a lost french model who works at a cheesy photo shop for erotic models.

The street scenes from 1969 are quite interesting. The actress who plays Gloria died at a young age from arteriosclerosis. She also is good as a rather direction-less actress, she wants to act, but George tells her ..."I will just see you naked in a bathtub, more soap commercials"... .

The sets are odd in that L.A. was still a relatively undeveloped city....its fun to see the old cars, the oil well and cheap housing George and Gloria live in right on the beach no less. Wonder where that was, in actuality, filmed. It would be interesting to compare how it looks today.

George basically meets up with some friends, tries to get interested in a newspaper his friends are running, he mostly needs a distraction to prevent himself from thinking about the draft, as his father informs him that he must return to San Francisco after the weekend to be entered in to the military for Vietnam. Vietnam and its cease-fire is hinted at here by a radio broadcast, but overall you get the sense of the pointless war, the young men trying to avoid the draft.

He eventually meets up again with Lola and tells her he wants to love her. She, a few years older, simply smiles. They eventually wind up at her friends nearby apartment though she is already packing to return to Paris to see her estranged son. They spend the night, and it gives George a slight sense of hope. He allows his former relationship with Gloria to evaporate, debates deserting the army, but eventually realizes, it is what it is.

Aimee is good, understated here, as a rather lost and empathic character who just wants to afford a flight back to Paris. Not an intricate theme here, but worth seeing for older scenes of L.A. 8/10.

The time and the setting (late 60's LA) seem among the most authentic of any movie from that period, probably owing to the director who wasn't trying to exploit the culture like so many American directors of the time did. The film transcends nostalgia, and is very worth seeing for the style, authenticity, and music (provided by one of LA's greatest bands, Spirit). The main character played by Gary Lockwood (lots of TV credits over the years) is under great direction by Demy, who helps to make him into an American version of someone out of French New Wave. And into the wave comes Anouk Aimme, whom he meets in an LA "model shop", about as cool and detached a woman as ever graced the screen.

The icon in the "SHOP" window should be activated by now, since Sundazed has finally released Spirit's wonderful, long-lost soundtrack music...really the only reason "Model Shop" is remembered at all. In fairness, Demy's film does provide many tasty images of late-'60s L.A., with nice views from Sunset Plaza -- but, as groovy '60s L.A. movies go, Demy is no John Boorman and "Model Shop" is not exactly "Point Blank." The zonkoid lead performances of Anouk Aimee and Gary Lockwood don't do much to pique one's interest either. But hey, so little footage (if any) of the original Spirit lineup exists that their brief scene alone makes watching worthwhile. So pick up the CD and long live Randy California!

It's always interesting to see a foriegner's view of America (i.e. Antonioni's ZABRISKE POINT, Malle's ATLANTIC CITY), and here, French director Demy's look at 60's L.A.. Looking back in hindsight, it's easy to pick out the details and even cliches that Demy found so fascinating (fashion, car culture, seemingly endless stretches of buildings & lights, psychedelic music (SPIRIT), drugs, underground newspapers, counterculture ideals and, inevitably, the Vietnam War).

The nominal plot is more just a day in the life (almost exactly 24 hours) of a layabout disaffected wannabe architect (Lockwood) who is in a loveless relationship with a pretty but insubstantial young thing (Hay), who meets a mysterious French woman (Aimee). Not much "happens", but the themes and details enumerated above all weave their way into this portrait of a "day in the life."

Unfortunately, Demy selected the dull Lockwood as his lead (it strains credulity to really believe he is a talented architect). Lockwood's lack of charisma is what reportedly led Stanley Kubrick to cast him as the dull uncharismatic astronaut in 2001 (you know the old joke, the most "human" of the characters in 2001 was HAL!). Aimee, despite her French hauteur and ennui, brings the only life to the acting (the less said about Hay the better).

In sum, a tiny slice of life in late 60's L.A.. Not grand, but of some note.

Technical note. The American Cinemateque debuted a striking NEW 35MM print over the July 4th Weekend. Perhaps, this will signal a few Revival House and Film Festival Screenings, as well as a first-time on Video/DVD debut.