Lulu is the heroine played by Louise Brooks in the 1929 film Pandora’s Box.
Lulu is the central character in Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s Lulu plays. She is portrayed as a compelling figure whose relationships with powerful men and changing social circumstances produce escalating consequences.
The character is not the Pandora of ancient Greek mythology. Wedekind created Lulu for the plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box, and the film uses the second play’s title. The connection to Pandora is symbolic rather than genealogical: Lulu’s presence opens a chain of social and personal disasters.
Louise Brooks’s performance made Lulu one of the most recognizable characters of silent cinema. The role is especially associated with Brooks’s distinctive bobbed hair, direct gaze, and emotionally controlled acting. Because the film title names Pandora but the heroine is Lulu, identifying the character by name is a useful way to distinguish the adaptation from the ancient myth.