Two sisters (one a music composer, the other a dancer) living in a seaside town in France dream of leaving for greener pastures and finding their soul mates.
Jacques Demy is a French New Wave director who eschewed the experimentation of his contemporaries, instead choosing to emulate the spectacle and romance of classic Hollywood musicals. His landmark film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg used color photography in a bold fashion not seen before in French cinema, and in French operetta style, all the script's dialogue was sung by its cast. For his follow-up The Young Girls of Rochefort, Demy altered his approach by having the actors weave in and out of various songs mixed seamlessly with the regular spoken words.
Real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françiose Dorléac star, and are joined by French screen legends Danielle Darrieux and Michel Piccoli, actor/dancer George Chakiris (who had recently won an Academy Award for his work in West Side Story), and a special appearance by American musical icon Gene Kelly, one of Demy's heroes.
To achieve Demy's vision, the production crew essentially took over the town of Rochefort, painting over 120,000 square feet of the city's buildings and structures to fit the designed pastel color palette. Bravely, the entire film was shot on location and no studio sets were used. In addition to Demy's gift for capturing the movements of the actors with his camera, the script by Jacques Perrin is a shining example of choreography and poetic realism with its recurring use of missed connections and coincidences.
Another important element is the contribution of Michel Legrand, a French composer and pianist known for his pioneering work with many American jazz musicians and pop singers, including Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, and Ray Charles. His scores on a wide assortment of French New Wave films peaked with the ambitious musical collaborations with Demy (who wrote all the song's lyrics), which brought international attention to Legrand and put his services in high demand.
The Young Girls of Rochefort was not as successful as its predecessor, and Demy struggled on and off for the rest of his career. However out-of-fashion the film may have seemed at the time, its imaginative and emotional fantasies are now regarded as something delightfully unique to French cinema and to the musical form in general.
Running time is approx. 2 hours.
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