Feast for the senses

French filmmaker Jacques Demy’s finest works have stood the test of time, retaining their freshness and appeal even after several decades, writes Vikramdeep Johal

Sensuous is the word that best describes Jacques Demy’s cinema. With a painter’s eye for beauty and a composer’s ear for music, he made some fascinating films that celebrated life in its various hues.

Demy, whose retrospective was organised by Alliance Francaise in Chandigarh recently, was part of the French New Wave that made quite a splash in the film world for about a decade, beginning in the late 1950s. What set him apart from other young directors was his penchant for music, dance and romance — with more than a dash of realism.

His debut movie, Lola (1960), was the story of a cabaret dancer and single mother who delays choosing from her suitors while she awaits her true love’s return from abroad. The "fairy tale of sorts" was set in the port city of Nantes, where Demy was born (on June 5, 1931) and brought up, where he discovered cinema during WWII.

His breezy direction was well complemented by Michel Legrand’s lilting score and Anouk Aimee’s superb performance in the title role. He dedicated the film to celebrated German director Max Ophuls, whose swansong Lola Montes (1955) was its source of inspiration.

Demy’s most famous work is, of course, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), an audacious musical in which all dialogue are sung rather than merely spoken. Due to its originality, he faced problems making the movie. He went to the extent of getting painted the exteriors and interiors of houses in Cherbourg to match the resplendent clothes worn by the characters. The director’s complete faith in his creation was justified when it won the grand prize at Cannes.

This was his first film with the bewitching Catherine Deneuve, cast as a girl who finds she’s pregnant after her lover leaves for Algeria on military service. The bittersweet melodrama is undoubtedly one of the most romantic French films of them all. Ithard not to be swept off one’s feet by its passionate lyricism.

There was no place for melancholy in Demy’s next film with Deneuve, The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). Brimming with joie de vivre, it was a colourful homage to Hollywood musicals like Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and On the Town (1949), which both starred Gene Kelly. A major attraction was the presence of Kelly himself, who danced with the same gay abandon despite being in his mid-fifties. An important role was essayed by Deneuve’s sister Francoise Dorleac who, ironically, died in a car accident shortly after this life-affirming film’s release.

In a directorial masterstroke, virtually the whole town of Rochefort-sue-Mer was transformed into a gigantic stage for all the uninhibited singing and dancing. It’s an ideal film to watch if you want to forget — for two hours — all the worries of the world.

Demy was at the peak of his powers in the 1960s. During the next two decades, his output was largely unremarkable. Jacquot de Nantes, a fond evocation of his childhood and adolescence, was made by his wife Agnes Varda, a distinguished director herself. Released just a few months after his death on October 27, 1990, it’s a glowing tribute to a brilliant filmmaker.

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