You hate jazz, are allergic to the color pink, or believe musicals should be gritty (in which case, go watch Les Mis and leave the fun to the rest of us).
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort is a unique hybrid. Structurally, it borrows from the Hollywood musicals of the 1940s and 50s—specifically the work of Vincente Minnelli and Stanley Donen—favoring big ensemble numbers and tap dancing over the intimate realism of French cinema at the time.
Cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet (and uncredited help from Jean Rabier) drenches every frame in pastels: pinks, mint greens, lemon yellows. Rochefort was actually a gray, rainy town, but Demy had every storefront, shutter, and fence repainted. The result is a hyperreal, dreamlike France that never existed — and yet feels more true than documentary footage. The is the sisters in matching orange dresses, walking under a canopy of blue-and-white striped awnings, their reflection bouncing off a rain-slicked street after a sudden storm. It is painterly, melancholy, and ecstatic at once.
You hate jazz, are allergic to the color pink, or believe musicals should be gritty (in which case, go watch Les Mis and leave the fun to the rest of us).
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort is a unique hybrid. Structurally, it borrows from the Hollywood musicals of the 1940s and 50s—specifically the work of Vincente Minnelli and Stanley Donen—favoring big ensemble numbers and tap dancing over the intimate realism of French cinema at the time.
Cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet (and uncredited help from Jean Rabier) drenches every frame in pastels: pinks, mint greens, lemon yellows. Rochefort was actually a gray, rainy town, but Demy had every storefront, shutter, and fence repainted. The result is a hyperreal, dreamlike France that never existed — and yet feels more true than documentary footage. The is the sisters in matching orange dresses, walking under a canopy of blue-and-white striped awnings, their reflection bouncing off a rain-slicked street after a sudden storm. It is painterly, melancholy, and ecstatic at once.