Jacques Demy's The Model Shop

I am a sucker for goofy movies from the 1960's. Especially movies from major studios desperately trying to be be cool and appeal to the rebellious generation of that era. I was expecting :The Model Shop", shown recently on Turner Classic Movies, to be such a movie. I was expecting LSD sequences, women in mini skirts dancing to music played by a band goofy looking kids. What I got was a thoughtful, sad, almost depressing movie about two very lonely people. One a French woman who went to LA and ended up a model in a sleazy joint where pervs take photos of her. The other a drifter type who has no goals, no plans. But he is not a likable guy either. He is a total loser in every way. They meet by chance and well, he falls in love. She, well, is not sure about the whole thing.

The movie was directed by Jacques Demy, the director of such movies as "The Umbrellas of Chembourg" and "The Young Girls of Rockefort". But this movie is so different. There is none of the color and music of those movies. This is a bout sad reality. About unrequited love (there are two such stories here). There are scenes that don't work that well, some of them go on for two long. But, like watching real life, one can't take the eyes off the screen. And that's more thats more than one can say about 99% of movies.