1967 French musical
Rating: 17/20
Plot: People spontaneously burst into song and dance as they experience missed connections after a carnival rolls into the small town of Rochefort.
Why does the title of this movie only include the twin characters played by Catherine Deneuve and her actual sibling (but not twin) Francoise Dorleac? The beautiful thing about this movie is the way the stories of all these characters converge. It's not just about the sisters and their desire to experience a world beyond this small seaside town. It's about all of these characters, all these missed connections and reconnections. It's a Jacques Demy juggling act, and it's fucking magical!
My biggest regret in life right now is that I didn't become fluent in French so that I could absorb the visuals without having to move my eyes to the bottom of the screen and read everything.
I love how unabashedly artificial this whole thing is. With the exception of one actress, these people aren't even doing the singing for these musical numbers that spontaneously erupt, and the dancing sequences, though wonderful, aren't the smoothest I've seen in musicals. There are color combinations that don't seem likely to actually exist, and even the carnival that rolls into town gives the whole movie this artificial blue-collar fairy tale sheen. And there are all these times when characters break the fourth wall, look into the eyes of the audience, and sing directly to us. I can't remember another recent movie experience where it seemed like the director was making it this clear that it's only a movie and nothing like real life at all.
Still, it's easy to connect with the characters, their dreams and infatuations, and their relationships because they are capable of reminding anybody of something in his or her real life. Everybody has these sorts of missed connections or opportunities, these moments in time where if something would have happened a little differently or if something else had been said, there would have been a good chance of getting laid. So even though the two carnie/poets are dressed like flamboyant Mormons, we can still identify with those characters. Even if the choreography of background dancers is a little too cinematic, we can still recognize this world as one that we belong in.
Speaking of backgrounds, that might be my favorite thing about Young Girls. There's a depth to these scenes that would make a second viewing rewarding, maybe one where you don't even bother reading any of the dialogue or lyrics to these songs. There's always something going on in the background--the assembling of the carnival stages, an old guy perpetually constructing model airplanes, customers or pedestrians obliviously dancing along with whatever's going on with the main characters, perfectly timed cars.
The songs themselves are all good and bouncy, keeping this entire production a completely breezy affair. My favorite was one where the two carnies and two sisters pick up a variety of instruments and pretend to play them. In that same song, every character in the movie gets a few lines that catch us up on what they're feeling. Legrand, who also did the music for Demy's Umbrellas lyrics, even manages to slip in a reference to himself in that one. It's a great centerpiece for this musical. I liked all the energetic songs, most of them with lyrics that--again artificially--fill us in on where these characters are and what they want. The dance choreography always surprises, and with a few exceptions, the camera never lingers on one or two characters for very long. Gene Kelly, after meeting Dorleac for the first time, gets an extended dance sequence where it's him and a bunch of people who can't really dance moving along the street. There's a long and very touching romantic dance with those two characters later as well. There's some charming choreography in a scene where Catherine Deneuve is walking a block. And the whole thing opens with a sequence on this moving bridge thing where the carnival workers suddenly get out of their cars and have their stretching transform into dancing, and that whole scene reminded me a lot of the opening of La La Land. There's also this great impossible overhead shot during that opening.
This movie just made me so happy.
Demy doesn't just paint with idyllic colors, however. We're reminded that this is a town "crawling with soldiers, sadists, and unknown painters" on more than one occasion, and one subplot concerns the discovery of a dismembered corpse. Of course, since this is a Demy/Legrand collaboration, the characters are cheerily singing about that news story. I just love that contrast, almost like somebody triple-dog-dared the writers to compose a happy song about the discovery of body hacked up by a sadist.
There's also a boner joke in there somewhere, Honda product placement, and the gayest version of basketball I have ever seen.
You probably have to love musicals, artificial movie romance, beautiful people, and colors in order for this to work, but if French musicals are your thing, I don't see how you wouldn't love this cleverly-crafted explosion of song and dance.
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