Review of Lolita (1962) by Jacek S — 25 Mar 2009

Watching Kubrick's "Lolita" is like talking to a virgin who's trying to convince you that he/she knows something about sex. Since he/she is underneath uncomfortable with the subject and does everything so his/her ignorance wouldn't get exposed, there's a lot of work of imagination. In fact, from one point on, there really nothing else besides imagination. But we know that where there's too much imagination, there's not much substance since imagination is always a part of storytelling, not its fundament. And what seems almost abstract to me, after I watched this flawed film is that I felt as if.

This powerful story about love, lonlieness and suffering was told by some old nun in Sunday school, a non-experienced creature who could use a reach around once in a while, so maybe that way her way of storytelling would gain some power and necessary spice to adds up its character.

Not that I'm mocking Kubrick here. In fact, I'm mocking screenwriter, the great Nabokov himself who must've thought that the screenplay is still a book where he can deliberatly leave plenty for readers to imagine. He must've forgotten - or he simply didn't know - that certain elements in cinema simply must be shown, otherwise it's a deep black hole. As Roman Polanski once wisely said: "When you tell the story of a man who is beheaded, you have to show how they cut off his head. If you don't, it's like telling a dirty joke and leaving out the punch line." The problem is that Kubrick agreed on it, as if he was thinking too that having Humbert ask Lolita: "Do you love me?" was enough for us to be engaged in the drama of the two.

Maybe that was Kubrick's point. To focus mainly on consequences, not on the tension between the two. Maybe. Well, if so, it remains unconvincing and even Winters' lovely acting and Mason's absolutely brilliant performance can't compensate a non-existen sexual vibe that is a fundament of their relationship. I don't wish to sound like someone who wanted to see a unstimulated sexual act - not only because it's was impossible to show it back then - but as far as Kubrick went, I believe he could've gone a little but further than leaving at painting Lolita's toenails. That way it looks like classical story of a boy showing a girl his penis and her running away. Not only it is safe. Archaic. Its makes this provocative, important story childish and laughable. Of course there's always a flip side to that coin, that maybe he couldn't go as far as he wanted. Well, to that question the answer is very easy. He might've want to wait till the 80's or 90's with it, I'm sure he would be better off that way, simply by looking at what he accomplished in his masterful "Eyes Wide Shut".

On the technical level, it is overlong, and for the most of the second part, boring. And why in the hell it starts with the last scene making the ending absolutely terrible, I still wonder. Fortunately, the undeniable genius of multi-characterization of Peter Sellers shines here with all its brightness.

Adrian Lyne's "Lolita" might've not been a perfect adaptation either but at least it.

Presented a sheer emotion of what was happening between the two, and what's more important, it gaves us a reflection of what Humbert was going through in his masochistic, confused mind - madly in love and being ashamed of it at the same time, deeply alone with the great force of wanting something pure, innocent, putting up bit by bit with Lolita's infantility.

I'm still waiting for a man with the guts and vision who will tell this story as it should be told since the story itself hasn't dated a single day, like all what's great in literature.