Monday, February 25, 2019

Romancefest 2019: The Young Girls of Rochefort

Written and Directed by Jacques Demy
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, Gene Kelly and Danielle Darrieux
France, 1967

The fair comes to the seaside town of Rochefort and brings with it romance for a pair of singing and dancing twin sisters. Meanwhile, the romantic lives of several other town inhabitants twist and turn through various meetings and break ups, centered around the café in the town square, where the fair is setting up for the weekend.

I have to admit, when this French New Wave flick started up, and I saw the model-caliber actors and actresses singing and dancing on their way to Rochefort, I rolled my eyes a little. Here we go, a couple hours of a bunch of people cooler than me doing cool things, great. But then, the movie settled down and Deneuve and Dorleac hit the screen, and everything was fine. It was a new experience to read-along with a foreign language musical, and I’d like to see it again so I don’t have to bother with the subtitles, because the colorful song and dance sequences deserve full attention. Plus, Gene Kelly’s in it, which is never bad (unless we’re talking about XANADU… yikes).

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