A glorious film
just a few things to add to what everyone else has said
[NB SPOILERS towards the bottom of the page - not that the plot is exactly a suspense]
just a few things to add to what everyone else has said
[NB SPOILERS towards the bottom of the page - not that the plot is exactly a suspense]
- It's a "realistic" story on the face of it. The whole thing is reminiscent of the "verismo" Italian operas from the end of the 19th century, like Cavalleria Rusticana, where soap-opera plots about ordinary people are set to emotionally stunning over-the-top drama-queen music - inherently a democratic kind of style, saying that shopworkers and little old ladies have as much right to passion and glory as kings or gangsters or movie stars.
- Yes, the singing is silly. But the film knows this - in the very first scene the men in the washroom joke about "Carmen" (another example of the same style) and one of them sings something like "I'm going to see a film, I don't like Opera, I can't stand all the singing". Its a film that *knows* mechanics don't (usually) sing arias while they check the oil, and makes a joke about it. Buffy fans will have got the same point from "Once more with feeling" - the Fundamental Problem of the Musical is: "why is everybody singing?"
- But there is something unrealistic about it, the beauty. Everyone and everything is good-looking. The people are beautiful. The dirty old town is beautiful. Cheap bars are beautiful. Squalid damp flats are beautiful. Abandoned hulk ships are beautiful. A garage forecourt with petrol pumps and a canopy is beautiful. All the men are good-looking. And as for the women - someone asked why more men than women like this weepy film. The obvious answer is Catherine Deneuve. But Anne Vernon playing her mother is cuter than anyone her age has a right to be. And as for Ellen Farner... Guy has not one but two stupendously attractive women after him, which is about 1.99 more than the average member of the audience.
- The costumes match the background far too often for it to be anything but deliberate. At first its even more confusing than the singing. Madame Emery dresses differently to match the wallpaper of the shop and her flat, sometimes her clothes even seem to change colour for no reason other than to match the scenery. Genevieve stands in front of a window while a truck that's exactly the same shade as her cardigan pulls up behind her. When she tries on her maternity dress it has the same combination of royal blue background and pink flowers as the wallpaper behind her. When she walks past the docks with Roland they are both wearing different shades of off-white - hers matches the rusting paint on the old ships, his matches the cliffs visible in the distance. When Guy and Madeleine sit next to each other outside the cafe her orange-brown clothes and even her lipstick match the door behind her while his dark brown jacket matches not only the wood behind him but also her hair - exactly the same trick we've seen when he was sitting next to the prostitute Jenny with her red dress on front of the red screen inside the other bar. We are in fantasy land here, even if it looks a little like Cherbourg.
- but this is all the same as the singing. To ask "how does a poor family afford such clothes?" or "why is the delivery van exactly that shade of yellow?" is to miss the point as much as to ask "why does a shopkeeper sing to his customers?" or "why does it always rain when we say goodbye?". In this movie, in this fantasy land, the world is turned upside down, the meek can inherit the earth (or at least look as if they might), small-town Cherbourg is as romantic as Paris, sailors and truck-drivers sing while they work, the poor wear clothes that money can't buy, the scenery changes colour to match your wardrobe, every man looks like a leading man, and every shop-girl truly is as beautiful as any duchess.
- This is "Singing in the Rain" set in the backroom of a shop instead of the back lot of a Hollywood studio, this is "West Side Story" without the violence, this is a small-town "Moulin Rouge", this is "Brief Encounter" on acid.
- It's not a tragic ending, any more than the endings of Casablanca or Brief Encounter are tragic. It's the right ending. We're not so much sad for Genevieve - even though we are crying - as we are happy for Roland (who deserves a break. Even though we know he's probably a crook) If we are crying its because Guy needs to hug Francoise. We expect that the marriages will work out in the end - maybe they have worked out already. If these people are not going to be happy its not because they married the wrong partners.
- and what other film has had hundreds of thousands of viewers in floods of tears watching an aerial shot of an Esso service station?