THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG

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This 1964 French film musical, written and directed by Jacques Demy, is entirely sung, by a cast whose voices are all dubbed.  Add to this that the score, by Michel Legrand, contains only one memorable song and one would think this would be a film to avoid.

But no, it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and I for one was totally taken by it, Francophile that I am.

It helps that is stars a young Catherine Deneuve, and that it is gorgeous to look at despite being shot entirely on location in the port city of Cherbourg.  Demy achieved the picture's vibrant look by careful repainting of facades, the changing of wallpapers, etc.

The story itself isn't very complicated, featuring as it does barely half a dozen characters, but on the other hand it does go in unexpected directions. 

We start off with a couple of young lovers, Geneviève and Guy, who are separated when Guy is drafted to go fight in the Algerian war, but not before a night of passion, which has the inevitable consequence (it's 1957 so I guess the pill wasn't available yet).

Whilst Guy is away Geneviève's mother persuades her to marry Roland who is a well-off businessman and who is not put off by Geneviève bearing another man's child.

When Guy returns home, injured, to find that his love has married and left Cherbourg, he goes off the rails for a while, but his life gets back on track with the help of Madeleine, his aunt's carer, who has always loved him, and an inheritance when his aunt dies which he uses to open a gas station.

The film ends with a chance meeting of Geneviève and Guy on Christmas Eve, 1963.  Both are happily married but inevitably the meeting has a bittersweet aspect.   

All in all, un film très charmant!


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