Friday, 08 February 2013: Les Demoiselles de Rochefort
Friday, 08 February 2013, 20:00
Venue: (see Locations and Tickets for further details)
Programme category: Forest Row Film Society
Director: Jacques Demy, France 1967, 123 mins, PG
“See it, and swoon…” Time Out
Delphine and Solange are two sisters living in Rochefort. Delphine is a dancing teacher and Solange composes and teaches the piano. One day, Etienne and Bill arrive in town, and need the twins’ help with a song and dance-number. A beautiful and uplifting musical film with Gene Kelly, Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac.
“Absolutely sublime” The Times
Further Reading
- Time Out
- Daily Telegraph
- Senses of Cinema
- Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader
- Empire
- New York Times
- News items about the making of the film (in French)
music poor and lyrics dreadful. FILM Much to long for the poor storyline Could have been cut by 60 minutes but do not think that could have saved it, even Gene Kelly did not help. Also the acting of piano playing was appallingly bad from such experienced actors.
Explain why a roving fair had motor boats attached to the trucks?
Sorry Brad
The worst film I have ever seen.
Without doubt, THE worst film I have seen in my entire 66 years! What was it all about?? Everything was SO cheesey and how we were expected to believe the silly girl was actually playing the piano was an insult to the audience’s intelligence (as was the whole sorry film).It was FAR too long (in fact, 5 minutes would have been too long)and the best bit was when the film broke down! “Hooray” (I thought) now I can go home and unblock the drain but, no such luck, it was re-started and, how polite were we that nobody ran out screaming! In a word – DIABOLIQUE oh, and another, an absolute steaming pile of MERDE – 2 1/2 hours of my life wasted that I’ll never get back. Quelle domage.
Well, thank you for your comments, but I can’t agree. I don’t think it was Jacques Demy’s best (I prefer Les parapluies de Cherbourg and Lola, but it was one of those films where it’s just wonderful to sit back and soak up the meringue and not worry about it too much. I found is a visual delight, with lovely self-knowing undertones of wry amusement. There was no logic, but that doesn’t matter; how many musicals have water-tight plots (not that many films do generally….). There wasn’t enough variation for me in the music, though it sounds as though Michel Legrand had some challenges in setting all those Alexandrine verses. Anyway, I rated it Average. There’s also some more comments over on our Facebook page, where we’re also collecting your thoughts on the worst film you’ve ever seen.