LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT (THE YOUNG GIRLS FROM ROCHEFORT) |
In French with English subtitles. REVIEWS "Young Girls delivers two purring hours of pleasure. As well as being a love story in itself, it's a musical love letter to the idea of musicals, to the notion that people can suddenly be so overcome with their feelings that they burst into song on the street, or pirouette across a city square."
"An intriguing mix of French New Wave and Hollywood Musical, this still succeeds in sweeping you off your feet." "What makes the film so lovable and still so gladsomely alive today is how closely it hews to Demy's distinctive, celebratory vision of life."
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Delphine and Solange are "twin sisters born under the sign of Gemini" as they claim in the emblematic song of the movie. They are 25 years old, beautiful and witty, charming and clever. One is blonde, Delphine (Catherine Deneuve), and gives dance lessons. The other is a redhead, Solange (Francoise Dorleac), who teaches music. They pass the time longing for their ideal man and dreaming of moving to Paris... The twins' mother Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux) owns a cafe in the center of town, and pines for a fiance she left impulsively ten years prior due to his embarrassing last name... Maxence is a sailor, painter and daydreamer (Jacques Perrin, now successful producer of Winged Migration and Oceans) searching for his ideal woman. He knows just what she looks like without ever meeting her and he even painted her portrait… The film includes several other colorful characters: two traveling carnival workers (one of them played by Georges Chakiris from West Side Story), an American composer (played by legendary Gene Kelly), the owner of a music store (Michel Piccoli), etc. By the end of the movie, paths will have crossed, lives will have intertwined, and the film will have reminded the audience that finding true love depends more on chance than on anything else. Jacques Demy is one of the most shamelessly sentimental filmmakers. The Young Girls of Rochefort was conceived as the happy companion piece to Demy's heartbreaking 1964 musical melodrama The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (SFFF 2004). Unlike Umbrellas, The Young Girls from Rochefort is not entirely sung but is more in the tradition of American musicals, with catchy musical numbers (composed by Demy's acolyte Michel Legrand) sprung between patches of dialog. The Young Girls of Rochefort is a tribute to the American musicals of the 1950's and Vincente Minelli's films in particular. The Young Girls of Rochefort is a true comedy but you can't help feeling poignant undertones. The fact that Francoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve's real life sister, died in a car accident shortly after the movie was completed, is one of them. Shown with Les Perdrix (Two Partridges) by Jean-Luc Gréco & Catherine Buffat Q&A with Jenny Stark, Professor at CSUS, follows the Saturday screening. Saturday June 18th - 11:05am & Sunday June 19th - 6:20pm |
