Shot in a seaside town transfigured into a Demy dream world with white and pastel buildings and a charming square (40,000 square metres of Rochefort’s facades had to be repainted to achieve the colour scheme), The Young Girls of Rochefort stars Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac (Deneuve’s real-life sister, who died in a car accident shortly after the completion of shooting) as musically inclined twin sisters Delphine and Solange, whose mother Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux) pines for the memory of her former fiancé, the unfortunately named Simon Dame (Michel Piccoli). The three women, and the men who desire them, cross paths, fail to connect, misunderstand and misconstrue each other, but in the triumphant finale, as in a Handel opera, discover that love is indeed attainable.
Demy’s exuberant tribute to Hollywood musicals fills the widescreen frame with sisters in matching Boeing-sized bonnets, lovesick sailors in butt-hugging bell-bottoms, songs both gay and grisly (one about an axe murder), a dinner party in which the conversation flows in a ceaseless stream of Alexandrines, and Gene Kelly suavely embodying An American in Rochefort (he supplied his own wonderful choreography). Lush, lovely, light-hearted, afloat on a cloud of tulle and rue, The Young Girls of Rochefort is its own Easter parade. “I wanted to make a film where the prevailing sentiment was joyous,” Demy said. “One where the audience left the cinema feeling less gloomy than when they went in.”
This film will also play as part of the Film Studies: Creating Colour series.
Masterpiece. My favourite musical.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Nothing rivals the musical in its ability to externalise emotions like love, longing and ecstatic joie de vivre… for Demy’s lovers, there really is heaven on earth.
Geoff Andrew, Defining Moments in Movies
The movie equivalent of finest vintage Champagne.
Trevor Johnston, 1000 Films to Change Your Life
Media Partner
Jacques Demy
Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorleac, Gene Kelly, George Chakiris, Danielle Darrieux
France
1967
In French with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits
Screenwriter
Jacques Demy
Cinematography
Jacques Demy
Editor
Jean Hamon
Original Music
Michel Legrand
Production Design
Bernard Evein
Also in This Series
Amelie
One of the most popular French films of the past 25 years, Amelie is a delightfully whimsical confection from the ever-inventive Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Audrey Tautou stars as a young Parisienne who resolves to make the world a happier place...
The Conversation
Gene Hackman is Harry Caul, 'the best bugger on the West Coast', a surveillance expert whose jealously guarded anonymity is threatened when he happens across what seems to be a murder plot.
The Fall (4K Restoration)
Shot over four years across 24 countries, cowritten by a six year old girl, and entirely self-financed by commercials director Tarsem, The Fall is such a mind- (and eye) boggling movie it's hard to believe it actually exists. Yet here it is!