From Jacques Demy, I only knew his big musical successes, but then I was commissioned to work on a show on this director originally from Nantes director, which led me to watch his entire filmography, and so to discover his first shorts and his lesser-known films. Model Shop was one of them. It's described as his American film, but out of all his works, there is no doubt that this is the one which was the most influenced by the Nouvelle Vague. A minimalist script, the wanderings of two characters through the streets of Los Angeles, a barely developed encounter between Lola, played by Anouk Aimée, in a character that Demy had already directed in the eponymous film Lola (1961) and George, (Gary Lockwood) who must soon leave for Vietnam. The dreams she had in Lola (finding Michel) are long lost , and she poses for erotic photos to fund her ticket home back to Paris. George is losing both his girlfriend and his car and sees the sinister perspective of Vietnam looming ahead. Their two trajectories will brush against each other without really meeting. Communicating through interposed lens, where desire is delusive, the characters pursue the ephemeral, the unattainable, in this tentacular city where the deceitful euphoria on the late 60s reigns, and where the era's short lived enchantment is already fading, where the shadows of disillusion are growing, as is the melancholy so induced. Overall, a film about abeyance. Incidentally, the project Jacques Demy and his Work on which I was working, never saw the light of day.