Lolita Masks

Behind Humbert Humbert's placid university-professor exterior lurks, in truth, a pervert who stifles the young Lolita in an exclusive sexual and romantic relationship. In order to better dissimulate his nature from the eyes of society, he plays the role of the nymphet's father, a social mask that necessitates no physical disguise but nonetheless allows him to falsify appearances.

For his part, Clare Quilty, a successful author, also lusts after the young Lolita. He reappears throughout the film, each time in a different identity: aside from his own persona, that of a suspicious policeman, Lolita's school psychologist and as a mysterious voice telephoning Humbert at night... All alone to thwart Humbert's true nature and driven by the same penchants, Quilty pursues him, embodying different forms of authority (legal, psychiatric, moral) to better intimidate him. Through his different avatars, he becomes the "weighty threat, the following shadow, the spy of a society that hunts witches but whose corruption surpasses that of its victims" (1). Yet Humbert, blinded by his obsessive fear of being unmasked, never recognises him.

Whereas the end of the film reveals that Humbert truly loved Lolita, Quilty, on the other hand, only used the adolescent with consummate cynicism. From then on, the viewer is given a new perception of the characters: Humbert comes across as a conformist compared with Quilty's duplicity and perversity. This disturbing reversal, intended by the director who, not being able to film the physical love scenes for risk of censorship, makes Quilty "the bard and the special representative of abnormality" (2) and deviance.