Rating: 4.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2022 | 45/52 | Ethan Hawke and Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Closet Picks
It’s Friday morning. A caravan of motorcycles, horseback riders, and trucks approaches the Rochefort-Martrou Transporter Bridge, crossing to Rochefort for the Fête de la Mer. The carnival members stretch out for a synchronized smoke as they all load onto the gondola. Once across, they set up in the town square. Étienne and Bill, who work for the carnival, hope to sell their boats, motorcycles, and what-have-yous at the fair.
Meanwhile, Delphine teaches ballet to children while her fraternal twin sister, Solange, plays the piano. As the children leave, Delphine and Solange tell us about their upbringing in Rochefort, their romantic hearts that long for art and love, and their desire to move to Paris, where Delphine will dance and Solange will compose.
Delphine and Solange’s mother, Yvonne, runs a café in the town square, where Étienne and Bill go for some fries. She, who feels she should be living on the Pacific shore, instead lives in her glass aquarium: the café. Maxence, a sailor and café regular, is also a painter searching for his ideal love. He has painted her and put the painting in an art gallery. He awaits her arrival someday.
Delphine arrives at the art gallery to meet with her boyfriend and gallery owner, Guillaume. He confesses his love of her body, assuming she will marry him, even though she has said no. She sees Maxence’s painting and is sure it is of her. Guillaume assumes Delphine posed for it but will not tell her the artist’s name, saying the artist is dull and insignificant. Still, she wants to meet the artist, but Guillaume lies and tells her that the artist has left for Paris.
So Delphine breaks up with Guillaume, tells Solange about the artist, and decides to move to Paris. But first, Solange must meet with Simon Dame to arrange a meeting with American composer Andy Miller, who is giving a series of recitals in Paris. Though the sisters long for elsewhere, perhaps what they’ve longed for has been under their noses all along.
The film explores longing. Everyone we meet does one job but longs to be an artist. Poets sell boats, and composers accompany dancers. On a meta-level, they’re also all singers and dancers. Tied to this longing is the desire to find their one true love—the person who sees them as they are and loves all of them.
Like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the color schemes are gorgeous. This movie goes to the next level, creating rich color schemes that repeat in every nook and cranny. The result is a dreamlike world where true love feels possible. Jacques Demy would take this even further in Donkey Skin, which lives in a surrealist fairy tale.
This film was a massive touchstone for La La Land—the music, the colors, and the introduction through public transit. Both films focus on artists who long to break out and the love they find along the way. La La Land also borrows (steals) several musical motifs from this movie. Where La La Land differs is the direction in which it takes the love story, which Jacques Demy explored in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Despite playing (in part) as an homage to the Hollywood musical, the film was unsuccessful in the USA. Some speculate that the film’s centering on the fine arts appeals more to the French sensibility, whereas Americans tend to see such things as “elitist.” The film also barely has a plot. In what little it does, it happens in centimeters before another song breaks out. I prefer it because the songs end up shorter, giving us more variety.
I didn’t know Catherine Deneuve had a sister! Alas, it’s probably because she died in a car accident soon after this movie came out.
Why doesn’t every musical watch this movie before filming to see how to do it? The cinematography is perfect for musicals.
I love this movie and adored living in its dreamy world for a few hours! The axe murder subplot is so weird!