The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Directed by Jacques Demy. Starring Catherine Deneuve, Anne Vernon, Nino Castelnuovo, Marc Michel, Mireille Perrey, Ellen Farner.

Jean Rabier’s dazzling, brightly-colored photography makes this musical look like a shiny bauble, but it’s not exactly a candy-coated confection. The music is bittersweet at its warmest, haunting at its saddest, and the story of pregnant teenage shop girl Deneuve getting left behind by older lover Castelnuovo when he goes off to war is one of soapy anxiety and wistful ruefulness. The dialogue is all sung, making it a musical rarity for the era with a continuous music score instead of the typical selection of periodic song-and-dance numbers. The exaggerated expressions of these “common” lives can’t sustain interest at every turn (and the mundane-tunes-for-mundane-folks ain’t exactly “hummable”), but the poignancy of the finale is earned through the earnestness of its actors and the oodles of style that preceded it. Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, and the middle chapter of a loose “trilogy” of romances from director Demy, sandwiched between Lola and The Young Girls of Rochefort. Along with Repulsion the following year, this was the picture that made a star out of Deneuve and her striking, ageless beauty. Favorite film of director Damien Chazelle, and an admitted primary inspiration for his film, La La Land.

81/100