Demoiselles de Rochefort, Les (1967)

reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten


THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT

Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Miramax Films/Zoe Productions Director: Jacques Demy Writer: Jacques Demy Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, George Chakiris, Danielle Darrieux, Grover Dale, Michel Piccoli, Jacques Perrin, Gene Kelly

Neither a commercial nor a critical blockbuster, "The Young Girls of Rochefort" was a disappointing finale to Jacques Demy's early-career trilogy. "Rochefort" is a far cry from Jacques Demy's earlier "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," a smashing musical which in which every syllable is sung and which spotlights a bittersweet romance between the precious Catherine Deneuve and handsome Nino Castelnuovo. "Rochefort" sank quickly in 1967, allegedly because it was neither here nor there--a Hollywood musical made by a Frenchman who adored the genre. Spike Lee once said that movies about the black experience should never be made by white directors. Steven Spielberg et al prove him wrong, but perhaps American musicals should remain domestic category unsullied by the inspiration of composers from lands across the sea whose love for this all-American invention will usually exceed their proficiency.

The plot of "The Young Girls of Rochefort" is contrived, but that's no problem. This is the fate of many an opera and musical as well. The real flaws, however, appear early on. For one thing, Michel Legrand's music may be grand enough, but it's repetitive. You may leave the theater humming his melodies, but that's only because a single air dominates virtually every song. When a film bursts with tuneful energy almost throughout its over two-hour length, redundance is lethal. For another thing, Demy loses focus repeatedly. Whereas a romantic work by Comden and Green, or Lerner and Loewe, or Rodgers and Hammerstein will center on two characters, Demy's cinematographer, Ghislain Cloquet, is all over France's southwest provincial city of Rochefort, spending most of his time displaying the color of the townspeople-- whose women all have bell-shaped figures and whose men can dance like Gene Kelly. Granted: the director is in love with the coastal towns of France, principally Nantes, Cherbourg, and Rochefort, but to keep such a piece on a human scale demands a fix on two, or three, or four individuals at most.

"The Young Girls of Rochefort" seemed an unlikely candidate for restoration, that honor belonging in recent months to classics like "Gone With the Wind," and "8-1/2." But Jacques Demy's widow, filmmaker Agnes Varda, pays homage to her husband in restoring the print and digitalizing the sound track. The colors appear faded after thirty-one years but the voices and music come across just fine.

As with "Umbrellas," Jacques Demy gives the lucky town the appearance of a Grimm's fairy tale. light on the grim. His Rochefort is a happy place filled with people who are 90% young and all dreaming of love love love, but only if they can share it with their ideal men and women: a Cinderella and Prince population. The principal characters have not found partners and given their good looks and pure souls, we can't help wondering why not. The middle-aged Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux) had once rejected a lovely man simply because she thought his name, Simon Dame, was laughable (think "Messieurs dames," a greeting one gives when he enters a public place). Her daughter Delphine (Catherine Deneuve) teaches dance, has just broken up with an overbearing artist, and seeks an unknown painter who has done a portrait likeness of her. Delphine's fraternal twin sister Solange (Francoise Dorleac--who was Deneuve's real-life sister) awatis her prince while artist Maxence (Jacques Perrin), an incredibly handsome painter, seeks the woman whose face he has painted purely from his imagination. When two workers with a traveling fair, Etienne (George Chakiris) and Bill (Grover Dale) offer to drive the women to Paris, they inadvertently lead the title characters to the men of their dreams.

Deneuve and Dorleac are both heavily made up and come across like kewpie dolls ready for immortalization in Tussaud's wax museum. One critic describes Deneuve's appearance as that of "a novice on her way to a brothel." "Rochefort" features also Michel Piccoli in the role of the jilted Simon Dame, who now owns an impressive music shop in the town, and Gene Kelly as Dame's American friend Andy--who bumps into Solange on the street and falls instantly in love. No matter that Kelly is 55 years old and Dorleac is 23.

As the plot is not ample enought to exploit the substantial length of the movie, Demy spends a good deal of time fixed on the residents of the town who are so cheerful and wholesome that we don't wonder that the girls want to leave the place for Paris. They dance and sing, they sing and dance, one dance like every other, each song a recap of the previous one. Over and over, Deneuve and Solange croon, "We are twin sisters born under the sign of Gemini/ mi,fa,sol,la,mir,re,re,mi,fa,sol,sol,sol,re,do. The second verse pretty much describes the extent of the film's variety.

Not Rated.  Running time: 124 minutes.  (C) Harvey Karten
1998

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