Josephine

It's probably pure chance that I saw this film for the first time - in the restored version by Agnes Varda - a few days after I was leafing through Demy's Collected Lyrics which have recently been published in France. It's clear from Frame #1 that this is a film to which you either have to surrender as the credits roll or squirm in embarrassment for the next two hours. Demy's 'fairy-tale' is as unashamedly full of coincidences as any Shakespeare comedy even to the extent of employing one set of twins, albeit non-identical but played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Francois Dorleac. If you're going to stop and wonder why the streets are always available for dancing in - i.e. traffic-free - or why Danielle Darrieux runs a cafe/bar which is little more than a counter, a glass roof and no substantial walls, then you're in the wrong movie. Demy loved chocolate-box movies and he complemented them with chocolate-box music from Michel Legrand - I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I already knew the main love them via its English lyric by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, You Must Believe In Spring, recorded definitively by Marlene VerPlanck - and the score, on the whole is lush without being memorable and ranging from fifties type small combo jazz to all-out string ensembles and if everyone - including Gene Kelly - except Danielle Darrieux is dubbed so what. Jacques Perrin is also on hand as a love-sick sailor, what else, and after seeing him play more or less the same role (narrator) in both Cinema Paradiso and Les Choristes the effect is like seeing a photograph of a friend acquired in middle age when he was a young man. Definitely worth a second viewing and who knows, I may even go so far as to buy the DVD.

I just wanted to say I truly love this film and I do believe there will be a great deal of different opinions on it. My point in this post is that I have read in many places that the English language version of this film was never released and/or it's lost. This is not true at all as the first time I watched it was in English on television, late night during a stay in Brazil, with Portuguese subtitles. The catchphrase of "Je vais en Nantes, Je vais en perm' a Nantes" translated to "I'm going to Toulouse, I've nothing to lose."

The soundtrack is currently available on a fantastic new 2-CD set that replaces the long out-of-print 2 LP set, and includes the song "A Pair of Twins" in English! The LP, though, with its booklet and liner notes and pictures is a tough act to follow. Ah well.

I wish this movie would come out on DVD with both versions and greet a whole new generation of fans. Here's hoping this will happen within our lifetimes, while some of us are still young.

The Young Girls of Rochefort was an ambitious effort that paid off very generously in artistic terms but it was not as great a success in the box-office as Demy's previous "Umbrellas of Cherbourg". The score in "Rochefort" is sometimes a little repetitive but the soundtrack to me is the best one ever for a musical....or at least a French musical.

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.

(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.

It's hard to put your finger on exactly what it is about the atmosphere of Jacques Demy's musicals that's so - well - appealing, but "The Young Girls of Rochefort" opens with a pretty big clue: the dancers assemble on what looks like a funny kind of suspension bridge, when suddenly the platform lifts off (as does Michel Legrand's music), to float over the water to the other side. The kids (including "West Side Story"'s George Chakiris) dance away as they drift along in mid-air, giving us the perfect metaphor for what Demy's about to offer: a sunny bagatelle that sets you free from gravity, but which is clearly - well - a little mechanical.

Or perhaps "artificial" is a better word - Demy's always straightforward about what he's doing, and the play of artifice in "Rochefort" is one of its peculiar charms. He doesn't seem to care that the gorgeous Catherine Deneuve and her real-life sister, Francoise Dorleac, aren't really dancers (or that even the "real" dancers are sometimes slightly out of sync) - they simply carry on with their numbers through sheer star power and happy sang-froid. As do their characters - what might count as tragedy in an American musical is always merely accepted in Demy ("The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" being the ultimate example). Only "Rochefort" is about tragedies constantly being averted or diverted - if "Umbrellas" was drenched in a perpetual rain shower, "Rochefort" is pure sun.

Gene Kelly is also on hand to do a few cameos as Francoise's love interest - and his main dance is a charming, quick-time take on what he used to do on a much broader canvas. George Chakiris is, as we remember from "West Side Story", a charming dynamo; Danielle Darrieux is her usual sublime self; and keep an eye out for a young Michel Piccoli as the ardent Monsieur Dam. Michel Legrand's score, again as usual, relies a bit too heavily on its big theme - but it's also about as jazzily sophisticated as musical scores ever got. The choreography doesn't offer any breakthroughs, but there are some charming sequences which are nearly as through-danced as "Umbrellas" was through-sung.

Altogether a charmer - big wigs, even bigger hats, and an exquisite pastel palette - what's not to like?