The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Jacques Demy. 1964. ⚄
It seems like at least half of the good movies have this bit in the pre-credits:
Janus Films is an American film distribution company. The distributor is credited with introducing numerous films, now considered masterpieces of world cinema, to American audiences
So it’s an American distributor of European art movies. No wonder that logo pops up in so many DVDs…
[five minutes pass]
OH MY GOD. This musical is durchkomponiert? I mean, it’s not a normal movie and then sometimes they break into songs, but it’s songs all the way through?
Golly. I can’t remember the last time I saw that… If ever…
[the end]
I loved watching this.
Just some er notes: There are very few actual songs in this movie. It’s mostly people singing in the upper registry of their voices in a kind of… tune-ful but aimless way. Imagine: If you were going to sing “I’m going to buy some bread”? That’s what they’re singing: Those exact same automatic notes that everybody would sing if challenged to sing something without having a tune.
But it’s fine! I don’t understand why they didn’t write more melodies, though.
The colours, set design and cinematography is exceptional. I mean, are. But I’m subtracting one ⚀ because there’s no actual music here: It’s just automatic tune lines. The background jazz is kinda nice, but… why didn’t they write any tunes for these people to sing? WHYYYYY
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