The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Director: Jacques Demy
Writers: Jacques Demy
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon
Runtime: 91 minutes
Plot: A young girl separated from her lover by war faces a life altering decision.
Review: A cinematic confection so shiny and sleek and sugar-sweet—so studiously sentimental—it comes suspiciously close to a spoof, neatly dished up in Jacques Demy's brightly coloured French musical film, "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg." Seldom in my recollection has a French moviemaker indulged in such a flow of romantic plot and sheer decorative artifice as does Mr. Demy in this picture, which won the grand prize at the Cannes festival.
Not only has he resurrected the quaint and artificial device of having the dialogue set to music and unrealistically sung, but he uses this operatic method to tell a story that is so banal—so clearly ingenuous and old-fashioned that it wouldn't get beyond a reader in Hollywood.
As Noël Coward once said, it is surprising how potent cheap music can be, and there is, beyond any question, a certain emotional potency in this film. The fact that it is in French adds a bit of flavour to it, too. But along towards the end—and, especially, when those Esso signs flash on the screen—it begins to seem like one long singing commercial.
Reviewed by Mohaiminul Islam
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