Saw Lolita (1962). Ok, here we go. It's times like this I'm glad that this blog is only read by about 3 people because this film is an adaptation of the Nabokov book by the same name which is famous for somehow disabling everyone's media literacy. This film is pretty true to that legacy. Here we go.
The film is about a pedophile named Humbert Humbert who falls in love with Lolita, the 12-year old daughter of his landlady. The source novel is written from his point of view and, if you read between the lines, elides and omits many details in order to frame the abuse as romantic and reciprocated. There are some stories which try to cultivate sympathy for the pedophile (The Woodsman comes to mind) but this is not one of those films. We are supposed to be outraged by his hypocrisy and his willful self-delusion, slowly dawning on us as we realize he is an unreliable narrator. This film plays a similar trick but it's much more subtle. We don't get narration from Humbert, for example, and we are never clued in to the fact that this film is from a Humbertish point of view. You need to read between the lines.
Humbert ultimately runs away with Lolita to pursue an abusive relationship and the film is roughly divided into two halves: before the runaway and after. Before the runaway the film is shot like a 1960s sex comedy, with lonely piano teachers and widows clad in cougarish leopard print. Humbert is uninterested in all of this tawdry flirting, but in this hot-house atmosphere, Lolita's teenage contempt for her mother comes off like a romantic rivalry with Humbert as the imagined object of her jealousy. After the runaway, the film shifts into more of a thriller, as policemen, doctors, teenage boys, and casting directors all vie for Lolita's attention. Once again, her fear about what's happening takes on a double meaning to Humbert: her secretiveness and lies are not because she wants to escape (he imagines) but because she is falling for some other man.
Finally, the film plays a last trick on us of indicting our society in Lolita's exploitation. Lolita is made to be seductive, often propping her feet up, showing off long legs, her smooth face crinkling as she says "Gee, well keep in touch!" Through Humbert's eyes, we never really see her trying to escape his grasp. What she's actually doing away from him remains a mystery. The trappings of the sex comedy and thriller genres also act to obscure what's really going on. It's easy to fall into the mindset of these genres, and we have to keep reminding ourselves that this is a lens we're seeing through. The seeming romantic rival is just a snotty teenager acting out and the seeming femme fatale is just a scared teenage girl, thrust into a situation beyond her years.
This film is a sort of dark comedy, a satire which uses the cliches of other films to convey the warped understanding of the protagonist. It is not obvious satire however and it's apparently very easy to miss satire even when it's quite blunt. As with the novel, I suspect that some people will view this as somehow condoning the events in the film, apologizing rather than condemning. I suspect also that, like with Wall Street and Romper Stomper, the very folks the film attempts to skewer will wind up enjoying it sincerely.
Alas, a daring and complex film which is only becoming more fraught and problematic over time. It's not a bad film, but a difficult one.
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