Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964) - film review

Geneviève is a 17 year-old girl who works in her mother’s umbrella shop in Cherbourg.  She is in love with a young garage mechanic, Guy, whom she plans to marry.  Her mother does not approve, since Geneviève is too young and Guy too poor.  To pay off a debt, Geneviève’s mother is forced to sell her necklace to a wealthy jeweller, Roland Cassard.  The latter falls in love with Geneviève as soon as he sees her, but the young woman’s affections are fixed on Guy.  Then Guy announces that he must leave Cherbourg for two years, to do his military service in Algeria. Geneviève is upset and the two spend one last night of bliss together.  Several months later, Geneviève discovers she is pregnant and, not having heard from Guy for a while, agrees to marry the jeweller Cassard.  Then, one day, Guy returns to Cherbourg...

Jacques Demy’s most famous film, Les parapluies de Cherbourg is one of the most beautiful, and captivating romantic films ever made, a monument to ruined happiness and devastated hopes.  Through music, colour and stunning photography, Demy creates a dream world where love and regret are as real as sunshine and raindrops, and where everyday settings and events are portrayed with lyrical eloquence.

The film is a musical in the truest sense of the word – but very different to the conventional stage form.  In an opera or a modern stage musical, the music is the dominant component of the artistic ensemble – often carrying much greater weight than the dialogue and the visuals.  In the film Les parapluies de Cherbourg, the music is there to support the dialogue, to amplify its power of expression -  to guide our emotional response, not to create it.  Our feelings are aroused by the images we see, the sad, tragic faces of the separated lovers, reinforced by the simple, but eloquent dialogue, and finally echoed by the subtle, but emotionally charged music.  Jacques Demy, a greater innovator of the French New Wave, has created a new art form, and one which has never been successfully imitated.

The story is a very simple one, fitting the traditional operatic form of unrequited love and dramatic irony – ostensibly a bad choice for a conventional film.  Fortunately, Demy’s film defies conventions and, here, it is the naïve simplicity of the story which gives the film its authenticity and emotional impact.  True, it takes a while to get used to the film’s unusual style – the opening scene with burly mechanics singing about their plans for the evening feels distinctly unsettling.  But, as the film progresses, the musical form seems to fit perfectly.

The quality of the performances is an important ingredient, and its two principal stars, Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo, although both inexperienced actors, shine brilliantly in Demy’s camera lens.   Their final scene together before Guy goes off to the war in Algeria is so moving, so true that it is almost painful to watch.  The scene when Guy returns – alone – is doubly so.

To capture the power and pain of a tragic love story without succumbing to the vices of sentimentality and over-dramatisation is one of the holy grails of cinema.  In Les parapluies de Cherbourg, Jacques Demy manages to achieve that aim in one of the most imaginative and original episodes of French cinema history.

© James Travers 2000

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Jacques Demy’s direction, combined with Michel Legrand ’s score, made this the most romantic of all musical films. Using different actors and singers to portray the characters adds to the overall success of this tragic yet beautiful story of love.
Patrick Salbaing (Montreal, Canada) 

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