Model Shop (1969)

(On Cable TV, February 2021) I got interested in Model Shop simply because I was curious to see more of Jacques Demy’s work after The Parapluies de Cherbourg and Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. I was curious to see his take on late-1960s Los Angeles, whether he’d carry his stylistic quirks over, and whether it would feel more like New Hollywood, Nouvelle Vague or the kind of Old-School Hollywood that Demy pastiches in his best-known movies. As it turns out, Model Shop feels like pure undiluted New Hollywood in its downer ending, small-scale character study and obsession with satisfying the filmmaker’s artistic intentions rather than providing entertainment to audiences. The story, as slight as it is, follows an unemployed Los Angeles man whose life is spiralling out of control — his girlfriend is about to leave, his draft notice has come in and (horrors!) his car is about to be repossessed, a sure sign of failure in car-centric L.A. As a film it’s not much: your liking for it will depend on how you feel about New Hollywood’s artistic aims in general. I still have moments of affection for the result, or rather specifically how its naturalistic approach credibly portrays 1969 Los Angeles without artifice, as the protagonist drives through the city and we take in the sights of an utterly generic city street. Otherwise, Model Shop is a very specific kind of film, somewhat undistinguishable from so many other similar movies if it wasn’t for its specific setting.