rareynolds
I just saw this for the first time (thanks, Filmstruck!) and can't get it out of my head. I want to crawl inside this film and live there forever.
davikubrick
Romance, colors, unexpected encounters and love are here brought with great passion by the brilliant Jacques Demy with the help of the magical soundtrack made by Michel Legrand. The story is simple but it's told with great magic: Solange (Françoise Dorléac) and her twin sister Delphine (Catherine Deneuve) are two young music teachers who live in Rochefort, they are both looking for the love of their life because they know he exists, but they don't know that the love of their life are also in Rochefort, just waiting to meet each other. Colors and even little objects seems to explode emotions, every scene cares a magic, euphoric and melancholic feeling that it's almost impossible to not be contaminated with these feelings. Even a simple scene of a woman walking in a street becomes memorable and magic, every song is powerful, unforgettable and beautiful, walking the line between happiness and melancholy so incredibly well like maybe no other film ever did. Overall, "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" is more of a experience than anything else, it explodes emotion, love and happiness and defiles you with all these great feelings. And to end, it gives you one of the most beautiful, sublime and memorable end sequences in all cinema history that deserves to be alongside equally wonderful films such as "City Lights" and "Sunrise - A Song of Two Humans". It's magical, beautiful and one of the most moving love stories ever told, it's pure cinema and a unforgettable film that captures maybe better than any other film what human feelings are really about.
gavin6942
In the little town Rochefort lives Delphine and Solange Garnier, two musical twins that teach music and dance to kids. One day, Etienne and Bill arrive in town, and need the twins help with a song and dance-number. Also, the famous piano-player Andy Miller (Gene Kelly) comes to town to help an old friend.Jacques Demy is an incredible filmmaker and the master of the musical. Working with Catherine Deneuve (his muse?), he succeeds again and even gets Gene Kelly in on the act. This film not only has solid singing, but plenty of noteworthy choreography. And, as Demy seems quite fond of, more than a splash of color.Jonathan Rosenbaum says the film "is loved in France but tends to be an acquired taste elsewhere." Supporting this view he cites Pauline Kael, who wrote that this film "demonstrates how even a gifted Frenchman who adores American musicals misunderstands their conventions." While this is probably not Demy's best film, trying to force it into the Hollywood box may be a mistake on Kael's part.Definitely worth seeking out, especially now that Criterion has released it on Blu-ray as part of their incredible Demy box set.
george7096
We loved this movie so much we went to visit the town of Rochefort. Stars from French and American cinema do wonderful work in the movie - Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, Gene Kelly, George Chakiris, Danielle Darrieux, and Michel Piccoli. The version now available from Netflix is beautiful and has fine sound, but we noticed one song had been deleted that was in the version we saw 10 or 15 years ago. As for Rochefort, it's a nice place to visit, on the coast halfway between Bordeaux and Nantes. The remarkable "transbordeur" bridge shown in the opening and closing scenes has been restored for operation as a tourist feature.
AD
