1953’s Lili is perhaps the first film from Hollywood’s Golden Age to make the case that misogyny – that unmistakable, unshakable loathing of the female species – is the very foundation of love. That to be a woman is to border on mental retardation, and that mindless innocence, such as it is, must remain the default position for any chick trying to discover meaning and purpose. Go through life with ideas, identity, and heft, and you’re bound to be hopelessly alone. Trade in the brain for a headpiece filled with straw and, well, you’re destined to end your Technicolor fantasy in a deep and lasting embrace with a moody puppeteer who just ten minutes before punched you in the teeth.
That’s right, I said puppeteer. Because the setting is France, complete with accordions, berets, and effete nimrods insisting on aggravating charm, we’re also in the rarified air of circus life. Our heroine, Lili (played as if under sedation by the witless Leslie Caron), recently set adrift by dead parents, decides to venture forth with but a suitcase and the world’s least sophisticated understanding of modern life. Within minutes, because she is sixteen and this is France, she is attacked by a nasty shopkeeper who believes it is perfectly natural to insist that blowjobs must accompany any and all offers of employment. Fortunately, she is rescued, so to speak, by a handsome magician named Marc (Jean-Pierre Aumont), who takes the same liberties as said shopkeeper, but because he is handsome, the ogling is reinterpreted as romantic.
Lili, having all the intellectual rigor of the very puppets she’ll soon encounter, falls instantly in love with the magician, primarily because – and this is important – she believes the magic to be real. Staring in stupefied wonder at tricks that stopped being fascinating somewhere around the end of Vaudeville, Lili can’t help but think that yes, with Panglossian pluck, this is indeed the best of all possible worlds. Lili want. Lili get. Lili in love. It’s the simpleton’s creed, but Lili is no ordinary simpleton. She also happens to have some of the best legs of the period, and this will be enough to keep her employed and upright.
Lili soon meets the puppeteer of the piece, one Paul Berthalet (Mel Ferrer), and naturally, he sees Lili as the end goal to a life lived in the shadows. She’s his escape, and by god, he’ll have her. Because she’s sixteen. And stupid. Only she loves Marc, so what the hell is he going to do? Naturally, he will pour all of his real feelings into his puppets, and the show (now including Lili) will become so popular that Paris comes calling. Only Lili isn’t really aware it’s a show. It’s not even apparent she understands the fundamentals of puppetry. Lili focuses so intently on the puppets, it’s obvious to all she has no idea that Paul is right behind the curtain, pulling the strings.
Some say this is a fable. Or a fun-loving musical. Or maybe in the 1950’s we just accepted that insulting our intelligence at the movies was part of the deal. Whatever the case, the film’s inescapable philosophy cannot be so easily discarded. Let’s go the tape: it’s okay to hit women if you’re jealous; exchanging more than two dozen words with a man will only get you in trouble; credulity follows females around like a hungry mutt; rape is something only ugly dudes do. And our Lili takes it all in with unparalleled gusto, making her the sort of role model an era could live with. Naturally, such madness garnered an Oscar nomination.
Say what you will about the dames of film noir – murderous, duplicitous, greedy as all get out – at least they acted. Plotted. Took the initiative to account for a better life. Because it took a global war to make us see the rot that remained stateside. Ladies like Lili, however, remain acted upon; seduced, slapped, and stored away like leftovers. Aimless automatons seeking only to service the age of conformity. Impossible to respect, but apparently darling and huggable before adoring crowds. And, as if ordained by the gods, Leslie Caron – our Lili moving through time – would, in less than five years, become another object of desire for the octogenarians among us: Gigi. More French “sophistication” that believes any man is entitled to adolescent females so long as he sings like Maurice Chevalier.
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