“The film used colour like a singing Matisse”, said the director. Though it was shot on an actual location, Demy remained loyal to his idea of paying tribute to the Old Hollywood through stylised decors and bright and cheery colours (the citizens of Cherbourg allowed Demy to paint their homes). As Catherine Deneuve said in an interview at The National Film Theatre, “a musical was very unusual”, a long way from a traditional French film.
“No one believed in it”, said Legrand about the film.Īnother unusual thing was to make a musical against a realistic setting like Cherbourg. And everything fell in perfect harmony with composer Michel Legrand’s lyrical melodies (it took him six months for them to finally start coming to him). Demy said that what bothered him about classical musicals was that the song and dance numbers disrupted the unity of the story, and he dreamed of making something seamless. What makes The Umbrellas of Cherbourg one of a kind is that the story is told entirely in song, with its characters singing every single line of their dialogue. “I want to make people cry”, said Jacques Demy about his idea for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, “about that first love” that doesn’t necessarily end up in living happily ever after – Geneviève (Catherine Deneuve) and Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) are two star-crossed lovers who are separated for a year when he is drafted into the Algerian war. La La Land occupies the same kind of nostalgic space. Decidedly tied to, but not traditionally French New Wave, The Umbrellas of Cherbourgis restrained and wistful, and has a tragic undertone, going deeper than the surface of an effusive romantic story, embracing the more complicated emotions of love and life. Demy, who, in turn, interestingly enough, wanted to pay his own tribute to the classic Hollywood musical (the title alone alludes to Singin’ in the Rain). The poster-paint energy and the rousing song and dance numbers may have a saccharine tendency, hinting at Old Hollywood fantasies (the films of Gene Kelly and Vincente Minnelli easily come to mind), but the colour schemes, the mood, its ambivalent approach to romance and the bittersweet ending evoke the 1964 French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, directed by Jacques Demy.
NO UMBRELLAS ALLOWED ENDINGS MOVIE
La La Land is movie escapism, an unapologetic romantic homage to classic musicals, but its dream-chasing optimism is anchored in the everyday, in real life. To be honest, it took me a while to get acclimatised to the opening sequence, but as soon as that was over, I was completely absorbed by this movie’s storytelling vivacity, flights of fancy and the perfect chemistry of Ryan Gosling (as Sebastian, a jazz musician) and Emma Stone (as Mia, an aspiring actress in the city of stars). But here I am talking about La La Land voraciously every chance I get. “Here’s to the fools who dream.” No wonder I love this film.
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