The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

To me, this movie is perfection.

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Really Surprised!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is a very beautiful and realistic film, whose final part messes immensely with us. During the movie we are not expecting such an ending. If it were a North American movie, with the same story, the ending would be different, the unfolding of the film itself would be different and everything would end up in a happy end, even more for a musical. It's not that the movie, as it ends, "ends badly." It ends ... how it has to end.

Writer-director Jacques Demy collaborated with composer Michel Legrand to create this 1950s French love story presented entirely in song. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo are the young lovers forced apart by circumstance and fate. She's the daughter of a shop-owner who sells umbrellas in the town of Cherbourgh; he's a handsome 20-year-old service station attendant who's been drafted and will be gone for the next two years. Demy cleverly trims his picture with amusingly arty accouterments, which is a good thing considering his thin story (separated into three chapters) has very few characters, an abundance of mother-daughter confrontations (set to music) and simplistic story contrivances. The picture did give us the Oscar-nominated song "I Will Wait For You", which is more memorable than the actual film. *1/2 from ****

This film has been name-dropped by many recently – or at least by those much more versed in cinema than I. I try not to be swayed by this – although it helps that the IMDb comments contain a good handful of overly snobby comments about how unintelligent others must be for not loving this film. So let's take this as another sign of my lack of intelligence then, because I did not find Umbrellas of Cherbourg to be as great as many suggest. There is a lot to love about it though. The great colors and style throughout; it is dated to a time and place that maybe didn't ever exist – and it looks great, and feels so effortless in its coolness. This quality is very much part of the ending too, however the conclusion to the film is much more than the beautifully shot moment that it is – it carries an emotional weight and honesty to it that really works well.The score adds plenty of color, and fits the production design to a tee. Unfortunately, though the singing left me cold – which understandably had a massive impact on how I was able to enjoy the film. I did not like the singing style throughout. The way it was done seemed to make all the delivery sound the same. It also seemed to reduce the narrative in nuance and detail, leaving it rather broad most of the time. It still had strong moments, where the actors gave more than the material offered them in the dialogue, but mostly it felt limited.For sure it was still a very cool watch, with several great moments – the best of which is a very strong ending – however too much of it failed to land with me.

Caught between sounding colors and the grieving song of Geneviève's stricken face, receptive audiences are destined to crumble in love with this popular French tearjerker. Everything works: the directing, the camera, the set pieces, the dialogue, the songs, the story, the makeup, the costuming, the actors, and the actress. Beautiful! Memorable! Heartbreaking! Perfect for adding to a collection! This movie is the prime souvenir of Jacques Demy and contains Catherine Deneuve's most emotional performance. Audiences of all ages can enjoy, especially those who enjoy romance musicals. Take a comfortable seat with a hot cup of chocolate, and brace yourself for not only one of the best movies of the 1960s, but of all-time.