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The Young Girls of RochefortRating:
Release Date: 06 May, 2003 Retail Price: $19.99 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $2.00! Cast: Complete Cast (6 total) |
The Young Girls of Rochefort Reviews
Charming fun, if a tad too long
Every now and then it's fun to pick up a video you know nothing about--to not even read the back of it--and just experience it without any preconceptions or media hype.
That's what I did with this movie and I was very pleasantly surprised. It's a very spritely, optimistic, creative piece, about the glories and traumas of youth, of love lost and found, of small-town life, of longing for something beyond what one has.
Not at all realistic-that is one of its attractive points. The bright colors used, the stylized clothing worn, the clean, white-washed look of the town itself all tell you that this is not a story to be taken literally or seriously(lordy help us if it were!), but a fantasy of sorts.The music is fun, as is the dancing (and I'm not really a huge musicals fan, so for me to be saying this is something), and the sixties look pervades.
My only complaint is that it's too long. They could have cut a couple of the numbers to good effect. My theory is that just about everything--be it book, movie, play, whatever--is 20% too long and this one fits that bill.
Still--you'll enjoy it. Sit back, relax, and let this film take you to a more innocent, carefree placewhere the sky is always blue and the people you meet on the street are always happy, or if they're not at the moment, they soon will be.
An Overstuffed Pastiche of Hollywood Musicals Has Charms But Wears Thin
Three years after his gracefully audacious film, "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", filmmaker Jacques Demy made a follow-up of even broader scope, a pastel-colored Gallic pastiche of Hollywood musicals. While the format of "Cherbourg" is a series of bold recitatives that build on the emotionalism of the simple love story at the movie's core, "Rochefort" is a more standard musical within an elaborate tableau of activity set in the seaside town of Rochefort. The featherweight plot centers on beautiful twin sisters, both with a passion for music and romance, and what happens to them when a variety troupe sweeps into town one weekend.
Demy fills the 1967 movie with so many references and tributes to Hollywood musical classics that it all feels overstuffed and overlong with our attention darting constantly among a gallery of superficial characters in various predicaments of less-than-earthshaking consequence. This would all be more acceptable if the musical sequences could transcend the paper-thin storyline. It is in this area that Demy provides a decidedly mixed bag of pleasure and contrivance. Norman Maen's ensemble choreography seems to mimic Jerome Robbins' acrobatic style quite a bit, obviously a conscious nod to the presence of George Chakiris as one of the main characters. However, the numbers look and feel less like "West Side Story" and unfortunately more like a sixties-era TV variety show. Michel Legrand, who wrote the music for "Cherbourg", composes a light jazz score here that is catchy but more transient in nature. There are no memorable set pieces like "I Will Wait for You" or "Watch What Happens" here but rather a series of pop tunes with inane lyrics that motor the story along like a sputtering Vespa.
Catherine Deneuve and her real-life sister Francoise Dorleac (who died tragically in a car accident right after completing this movie) play the twins, Delphine and Solange Garnier, with aplomb. They have a relaxed air with each other that gives the film its one element of realism. Their opening song, "The Twins Song", provides a charmingly silly introduction as they perform to the camera in matching outfits. Running a glass-encased cafe in the town square, their mother Yvonne is played by French screen legend Danielle Darrieux, the only one who actually sings her own songs in the film. Chakiris and Grover Dale dance with skillful dexterity as the girl-chasing carnies Etienne and Bill, though as both are Americans, their voices are obviously dubbed.
Dubbing is a less intrusive ploy with Chakiris and Dale than having Gene Kelly lip-sync to someone else's voice, which Demy does here in recruiting the screen legend to play Andy Miller, an American composer who comes to visit an old schoolmate in town. Looking fit and youthful for 55 and dancing like he never left the MGM lot, Kelly provides a wonderful albeit brief spark to the film, and one instantly recalls "An American in Paris" and "On the Town" as he dances so lithely on the streets. However, it's jarring to hear someone else's voice come out of his face regardless of the language barrier. Having Andy fall in love with the thirty years-younger Solange is also a bit of a stretch, but it provides a nice excuse for Kelly and Dorleac to have a graceful, valedictory pas-de-deux in the music shop.
Although musical numbers are plentiful, there are dialogue scenes that slow the movie down considerably, and the musical chairs aspect - which includes an artistic sailor (Jacques Perrin), a volatile gallery owner (Jacques Riberolles) and Andy's modest friend Guillaume (Michel Piccoli) - gets exhausting to track. There is even a pointless subplot about an axe murderer. Still, the movie has certain charms that will draw a specific audience inclined toward this genre. Ghislain Cloquet's colorful cinematography has been vividly captured in the 1998 restoration which is what the 2002 DVD contains, though the outdoor shots sometimes bleaches out the intended colors. Other than a few trailers, there are no other extras with the DVD package.
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