Lili

 For many, many years as a child this was my favorite film. It was so much my favorite that I bought the book as a paperback (Love of Seven Dolls by Paul Gallico). Although many seem to love both stories, after reading the book I could only see the deep flaws. Rewatching the movie, I see many of those flaws reflected, and I find myself unable to relate to the childhood part of me that loved this film. Let me explain why.

Although the stage-like filming kept that feeling of carnival pretending, the emotions running through this film felt much too real. This mightn't be a flaw -- it could be the most important factor, making the emotions the only "real" thing in the movie -- if only the rest of the movie treated emotions more realistically.

As in the book, the character of the puppeteer proved much too violent and problematic to allow for romance to develop without severe conscience issues, unless you want to admit that you'd encourage someone to enter or stay in an abusive relationship. In the book, the puppeteer is repeatedly physically violent, but even in the hideous fifties that wasn't appropriate on screen for a romantic film, so Paul Berthalet only strikes Lili once while the rest of his abuse is verbal and emotional. And yet the script obviously wants the audience to buy into the romance of the film; we want to buy into it. Mel Ferrer plays a strong man with emotional depth and tenderness. But in reality, if a man can't express his depth or tenderness, it's useless. It withers and dies, and in the shadow of violence, it's meaningless from the outset.

Abuse is abuse. That character accuses Lili of only seeing his anger, but the man never showed anything else to her, except through puppets, and how is a person to know what is real if it goes through a filter that thick? It's as likely that Paul faked kindness in his puppets as that he really meant what his puppets said. How is Lili to tell the difference? Should she distinguish between them? Abuse is abuse, regardless of how the abuser finds to express any "other" side of himself.

Ultimately, although interesting and nuanced, this film has much more adult themes that make the ending all too problematic for a mature audience, and to a child, it could be teaching some dangerous ideas, like the tolerance of violence, and the same dangerous helplessness that characterizes so many of the Disnified fairy-tales.