Amazon.com essential video: The wonderful Leslie Caron stars in this Oscar-winning musical fable with a touch of the bizarre. Caron plays Lili, a recently orphaned waif hopelessly in love with a carnival magician. Mel Ferrer plays Paul, a gruff puppeteer who can express his softer side only through his puppets. Sound weird? It is. Caron's performance is lovely. She is, as always, a graceful dancer, but she is also able to pull off the much more difficult task of making Lili pure and innocent without being icky--she talks to Paul's puppets with complete conviction. (The puppets, by the way, are incredibly creepy.) Younger viewers will take Lili at face value, but adults may well get sucked into its unintentional dark side: homelessness, suicide, emotional repression, and giant dancing puppets all come into play. Also enjoyable is Zsa Zsa Gabor, who does a great job standing around looking pretty as the magician's assistant. --Ali Davis
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Average Rating:
Rating: - Even for 1953, this has some problems
After seeing a revival of Carnival at the Kennedy Center about two years ago, I wanted to see this. When I found a used copy recently, I was disturbed. The story focuses on a woman who borders on social retardation and a man who loves her who is emotional abusive unless he's using his puppets to communicate emotion. Hmmm. Worth watching, but what it says about gender roles in mid-century America is just downright disturbing.
Rating: - Charm and warmth to spare
Thr title role in this Gallic charmer is played by Leslie Caron .Lili Dauner is a 16 year old girl ,an orphan following her father's recent demise .She has walked to a small provincial town where she has been promised employment in a bakers's shop only to find the job fails to materialise and that the owner of the shop has wandering hands .Escaping with honour barely intact she takes up with a small time travelling carnival being employed initially as a waitress.She is smitten with the carnival magician ,Marco the Magnificent (Jean-Pierre Aumont),a flambouyant and self absorbed man who lives with the attractive Rosalie (Zsa Zsa Gabor).She is oblivious to the love felt for her by the carnival puppeteer ,an embittered former classical dancer Bertholet (Mel Ferrer)a man only able to demonstrate his feelings for her through the medium of his puppets .She becomes part of the act as the other puppets manipulated by ... Read More
Rating: - An almost perfect film, so why no DVD yet?
I agree with all the other reviewers who applaud this post-war tales' aura of innocence amid the wreckage of real-lives gone astray. With the enthralling Performances and Music that actually moves the story the only problem is that there's no DVD yet. What's the hold-up?
Rating: - A 5-star work of movie magic, poor VHS transfer
Thanks to Amazon for making this neglected classic available on VHS, even if it is at robber baron prices. I actually purchased two used VHS issues; the first displayed so much color damage, I ordered a second. Unfortunately, both VHS copies looked exactly alike. It's a sharp image with very clear audio, but engineers who mastered this tape did a thorough job of wrecking what once was some of the most beautiful Technicolor work in the business. Some scenes are far too green, too blue, too red, or washed-out. But it's a solid image with plenty of detail, so with some skill, a PC, some good software, and a huge load of patience, the VHS can make a decent transfer to DVD (my project took 2 months, and I hope I never have to go thru anything like that again). With all the junk out there in digital format, it's a shame that better films like "Lili" have to languish in flawed VHS. That said, it's a great romantic fantasy ... Read More
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- Even for 1953, this has some problems
- Charm and warmth to spare 
- An almost perfect film, so why no DVD yet?
