#520
Post
by zedz » Tue Nov 26, 2013 5:48 pm
I'm pleased to announce that the domino harvey / zedz mutual bafflement zone is in full effect with Lili, which I finally managed to see.
It's an admirably peculiar film, starting with a thwarted rape (presumably) that nobody in the film seems to acknowledge, and then developing into a really odd love triangle with a whole lot of additional, not necessarily human, vertices. The momentum of that oddity kept me watching, but I didn't feel that any of the performances truly rose to the distinctiveness of the material (Caron's awkwardness was appropriate, but hardly revelatory) and I continue to regard Walters as a rather perfunctory director, with nothing in the film demonstrating any particular flair (or, again, any real grappling with the strangeness of the material). The comparison with a Powell / Pressburger film is certainly valid, but it doesn't do this film any favours.
This is all kind of academic in the context of the musicals list, anyway, since there's no way I could consider this a musical. I know the definition of the genre is flexible, but if there's any First Commandment surely it must be: "one song doth not a musical make." Sure, the song is partially reprised by puppets, but if there's any Second Commandment of the Musical, it's a toss up between "likewise two songs" and "reprises of songs don't count towards the total." Still, Lili is a very interesting test case, because there are also a couple of fantasy dance numbers, which bring the film closer to something like The Red Shoes (which I also couldn't in all honesty consider a musical). In the end, I'd have to consider it as a fascinating mutant offspring of the Hollywood musical which nevertheless doesn't meet the bare minimum requirements of the genre.