Les demoiselles de Rochefort

Suspending belief and just settling back to enjoy and laugh at the high camp of this unusual musical film is a pre-requisite.

Suspending, indeed, is the way the film starts and ends, with the travelling players and their vehicles travelling on the Rochefort-Martrou Transporter Bridge built 1898-1900; only about twenty of these unusual bridges were built worldwide, and half survive with some still in use. This bridge was refurbished in 1994 and is in use in the summer months. Suspending might, too, have been the end for the axe-murderer, but we are not told.

The French Navy school, the home for the many sailors seen in the film, was Le Centre Ecole de l'Aéronautique Navale (CEAN). No more sailors like Maxence, and no more sailors' hats with their red pompons though, as the French Navy pulled out of Rochefort by 2002 after a presence that had lasted 336 years. The ribbon on the sailors' hats reads EN ROCHEFORT - Ecole Navale Rochefort.

The primary colours of the film are a defining aspect and the sunshine helps enormously; who would not want to visit Rochefort for a holiday? The Mayor will be very happy with the film's being shown again to a new generation at London's British Film Institute.

With dancing sailors and young, lithe dancers, the different groups wearing matching clothes, the film is very high camp and will have some appeal to a gay audience for sure!

The whole is colourful froth and pretty harmless fun.

THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT is Jacques Demy's followup to his popular international success, THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. It's not the same kind of operatic musical as it's predecessor and is much more a product of it's time (and sadly, that makes it much more inaccessible to modern audiences). What you get here is a romantic farce in the old MGM tradition, with lot's of garish 60's-style color and costumes, definitely in tune to Michel Legrand's astounding jazz score. The campy outdoor dance numbers date, but thankfully give way to dynamically orchestrated instrumental versions of Legrand's music. This is definitely a movie for those who enjoy cinematic musical comedy; it's visual appeal is undeniable and each shot is lovingly designed and framed. Deneuve and Dorleac are amazing beauties and presented in their prime, which is reason enough to enjoy the picture. Michel Legrand's score is far more complex melodically and orchestrally than his more famous one for UMBRELLAS; it's a joy to listen to. About the best compliment I can pay THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT is to say that it brilliantly precedes and shines with more talent and energy than the recently released MOULIN ROUGE (a film that surprisingly has a lot in common with it). Demy doesn't need any CGI, MTV-editing or pop songs to get it's simple, lovely message across! It's very nice indeed to have a restored version on DVD of Jacques Demy's LES DESMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT!

(with apologies to Jonathan Rosenbaum...)

Watching the Hollywood musicals of Astaire and Kelly, one can't help but marvel at the skill and precision of the dancing and the mise en scene, and be buoyed by the very idea that the world could be so perfect, if only in a movie. "Rochefort" isn't perfect in the same way, but in pushing the musical to a different plane it achieves a kind of perfection, one dependent not on the talents of its cast or, as the popular Broadway musicals were, on the book & lyrics.

(Which is not to say that there isn't great music! Themes are repeated, to be sure, but Legrand's melodies delight, and there's more musical variance here than in "Umbrellas of Cherbourg".)

Musicals, like most popular entertainment, usually serve to reinforce our ideals. The 30 years since its release may have been kind, but "The Young Girls of Rochefort" is a rare thing, an entertainment that challenges, flies in the face of convention.

Of special note are the colors, delightfully absurd; the English subtitles, much of which read in perfect sync (including rhymes) with the music (a coinciding English-language verson was shot but never released); the macabre- this has to be the happiest musical with a song about an ax-murder.

The world in which this movie exists hasn't been seen on the screen before or since. Of course, all musicals are fantasy of a kind, but Demy takes it somewhere else. It is one of film's truly unique experiences.

When the movie was released in France,it was looked upon by most of the critics as a failure.Since it has been restored to favor and enjoys a high rating on the IMDb.

Hindsight reveals that Demy's work thoroughly deserved its restoring to favor.It's all the more precious as it was to be the only movie where the Dorleac sisters (Catherine and Françoise) would appear together,after the latter's tragic death.

A whole town is singing and dancing ,a whole town which painter Demy colors in pastel blue ,green ,yellow,pink just as he did in Cherbourg,three years before.But,unlike "the parapluies",the lines are not sung,it's actually closer to American musicals ,which Gene Kelly's and George Chakiris's presence reinforces.The French cast is also very exciting:Danielle Darrieux is marvelously cast as the mother (she would often be Deneuve 's mother,check "8 femmes"!)and there's also a Demy's favorite ,Jacques Perrin (who would be Prince Charming in "Peau d'âne)and Michel Piccoli.

Michel Legrand,without whom a Demy movie would not exist, gave one of his best tunes "the twin sisters song" .

As I said at the beginning of my comment,the movie met mixed critical reception when it was released and not-so-great commercial success.Demy exiled himself to America where he made the uneven "Model shop" ;but "Peau d'Ane" (1970) reasserted his talent in his native country.

This film often suffers by comparison to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and unfairly so in my opinion. Because it is more upbeat, and delights directly in its status as an entertainment, it is perceived as less "serious", (i.e. lacking in intellectual rigor.) However, it shares all of the virtues of its more celebrated sister film without the heavier taste of melancholy and I think Les Demoiselles is dancier. Even the basketball players are choreographed. The iterations of the twins' song are especially fun.