The film’s theme song, (in English) I Will Wait for You, has been movingly covered many times. It turns out to be one of Geneviève’s tribulations that she can indeed live without her supposedly indispensable soul mate. When Geneviève declares that she can’t live without Guy, her mama tells her: “People only die of love in the movies.” Mama’s proved right. On the contrary, it faces up to life’s less inspiriting realities and manages to invest them with the transcendence normally reserved for our generally scarce moments of rapture. Unlike so many feelgood favourites, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg doesn’t proclaim that love conquers all, that virtue will be rewarded or that money doesn’t matter to the pure of heart. And it’s this peculiar device that establishes the film’s game plan. Instead, recitative conveys everything from an inquiry about the price of an umbrella to a declaration of love through the same unremitting threnody, in a continuous paean to the delightfulness of human experience, whether that be happy, sad or merely humdrum. Michel Legrand’s lyrical, sweeping score secured one of the film’s Oscar nods, but it provides none of a traditional musical’s dancing choruses or showcase numbers for the leads. Like their surroundings, however, both are as grittily real as they are visually blessed. Her co-star, Nino Castelnuovo, playing Guy the mechanic, was destined for a future of TV bit parts, but here he’s hardly less gorgeous than she is. Catherine Deneuve, then 21, plays Geneviève, a 16-year-old umbrella shopkeeper’s daughter, in the role that made her name. The impossible beauty of the stars must have left Hollywood open-mouthed with envy. The dazzling cinematography brings home the harsh reality of everyday life in a dull, postwar provincial town at least as starkly as the same era’s kitchen-sink British films. Yet this turns out to be no escapist fairyland. Bustling and vigorous street scenes are intricately choreographed. Interiors feature enchanting pastel, candy-striped rooms set off by the simple but exquisite clothes and hairstyles of their humble occupants. The drab, war-scarred Channel port of Cherbourg is drenched in saturated primary colours. What, though, is the secret of this film’s abiding appeal?Īt first sight, it seems to channel the gaiety of Vincente Minnelli’s classic MGM musicals. A new generation of filmgoers can expect to be enthralled. In December, the result will hit UK arthouse screens from Exeter to Dundee. His mono sound mix has been deepened with the help of the original album of the film’s music. Their survival has enabled his original hues to be precisely recreated. Realising that his Eastman stock would eventually degrade, Demy made three colour separation masters from the original negative. Yet such has been the film’s hold that its fading celluloid has been subjected to a painstaking digital restoration.
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