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Friday, March 23, 2018

LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT / THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (1967)

Jacques Demy followed the success of THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG/’64, his sui generis ‘Popera,’ with this occasionally enchanting pastel silliness. Lighter in tone and not sung-thru, it too often deflates from enchantment into mere silliness . . . or mere pastel. Françoise Dorleac & Catherine Deneuve are musical sisters in town waiting for Mr. Right & a ticket to Paris. But before pairing up with sailor Jacques Perrin & musician Gene Kelly, they flirt with festival workers George Chakiris & Grover Dale while Danielle Darrieux, their café proprietor mom, nearly misses a chance reunion with long lost love Michel Piccoli. And all around, the city streets are in constant plié eruption with song feints & snatches of dance. Michel Legrand’s Pop-Jazz score is so breezy, it wafts away as you listen. But Demy never sneaks or segues his way into the numbers, they just START UP; it’s the film’s best idea. All told, more peculiar than successful, missing the unifying tone that makes UMBRELLAS such a wondrous oddity. Even so, no one would want to miss it.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Just about all the vocals & much of the dialogue is dubbed by others. But listen up in the second half when Gene Kelly’s own distinctive voice shows up for a pair of scenes set in Michel Piccoli’s music store. And in very respectable French.

DOUBLE-BILL: The film’s spontaneous All-Singing/All-Dancing ferry raft opening must have been a favorite of the creative hands behind LA LA LAND/’16.

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