Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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110 of 115 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful! You'll love it!, February 20, 1998
By A Customer
This could be the most beautiful, unique, romantic movie ever made. Every bit of dialogue is sung (but there are no "musical" numbers), and it's filmed in VIVID pastels, beautifully restored in this print (the film was originally released in 1964, and was the Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize winner). In French, with English subtitles, Letterbox (1.66:1, so it looks fine even on a small TV). Young girl (Catherine Deneuve, radiant in her first film) who works for her mother in an umbrella shop, "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" - hence the title - and young garage mechanic (Nino Castelnuovo) swear their undying love for one another, he goes off to war, she finds herself pregnant, and she must make some decisions which will forever affect the lives of at least four people. Underneath its beautiful and lighthearted look and feel is a very serious and moving story. The entire word-for-word/song-for-song soundtrack/dialogue is also available on 2 audio CDs - Les Parapluies de Cherbourg - Sony ISBN 7464626782. Directed by Jacques Demy, music by Michel Legrand. Several of the musical themes have entered into the cultural consciousness, and if you've never seen this movie before, when you watch it you may experience a pleasant sense of recognition, i.e., "So that's where that song came from!" You'll love it! END
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40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful DVD version of a unique film, April 30, 2004
There really isn't another film quite like THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. For instance, every line of dialogue in the movie is sung, yet apart from the heartbreakingly beautiful "I Will Wait for You," there are no songs. So, is it a musical? In form it seems more like an operetta. Musically, the dialogue is loosely organized, though certain musical themes are repeated often, and it lightly sung, none of the performers coming across as highly trained professional singers. Overall, the music, despite the presence of only one song, is entrancing.As fine as the music is, I actually found the film to be more riveting on a purely visual level. For instance, inn scene after scene, I found myself focusing on the art design rather than the music. Demy frames most of his shots against backgrounds of more or less solid and striking colors--green walls, blue-stripped wallpaper, unusually painted building. Demy also employs a host of subtle camera angles and techniques. The film is unquestionably as much for the eyes as for the ears. Most members of the cast were unknown to me, except, of course, for the surreally beautiful Catherine Deneuve, who was nineteen during most of the production of the film. She exudes star quality throughout. But none of the performers fails at all in their roles, though none of the others was the budding star that she was. One thing that struck me about all of the characters was that while the tale told is essentially a tragic one--or at least a bittersweet one--there are really no bad guys. Marc Michel, for instance, who plays Deneuve's wealthy suitor Roland Cassard, is a thoroughly likable person, even admirable. She clearly doesn't love him, but in no conceivable sense is he a bad person. Nino Castelnuovo's character Guy Foucher, for whom Deneuve's Geneviève Emery has asserted she "wait forever" turns out to be an inconstant correspondent, but apart from that he does nothing actively unkind to Geneviève. Geneviève's mother might push her towards Roland and away from Guy, but she is clearly motivated by a love of her daughter. The movie could have been subtitled: "A Tragedy with No Villains." The film is about love, but it is sadly not a love story. In a way, it deconstructs the kind of romantic myths that dominates the musical genre. This is the anti-Disney version of the possibility of eternal love.
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best musicals ever made!, July 12, 2000
Up until 6 months ago, I had never heard of "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg." My mom used to hum a couple of tunes from this French musical, but I never made the connection. However, I came across the DVD of this classic musical a bit back while searching for a present for my mother, and I quickly fell in love with this musical. It is different from most musicals, as it is (1) French, and (2) sung the whole way through. All the "dialogue" is sung in the recitative manner of opera music and lead so naturally into the actual songs that you really can't tell the difference. The story itself concerns the bittersweet love between the young daughter (Catherine Deneuve) of a shopkeeper and a young man who learns shortly that he has been drafted to join the French army. It is a beautiful story told simply and effectively by one of the French New Wave directors, Jacques Demy. As I understand it, he made a few more musicals starring Catherine Deneuve (The Young Girls of Rochefort, Donkeyskin), but this film was his most popular musical. For a long time, this film was considered "lost" due to deterioration of the film stock, its vivid colors reduced to pale shadows of its original glorious hues. However, thanks to recovery of an alternate negative that retained the original colors, the film was abled to be restored to its former brilliance. This restored version of the film is what is available currently on DVD. Truthfully, it looks quite fantastic. The colors are briliant enough to rival the Hollywood Technicolor process, and the sound is clean. I am glad I bought this DVD, and it has quickly become one of my favorite musicals. I only have a few problems with the DVD itself. First, subtitles are only in English. I would have liked to have seen French subtitles as well, but such was not the case. Also, the film transfer gets a little blocky and pixelated here and there; I understand that Fox/Lorber has a questionable on/off reputation with their DVDs, and I wish they could have been just a tad bit more careful with this classic. This marred an otherwise beautiful restoration effort. Lastly, I wished there were more chapter marks. Some of the best songs lie no where close to any of the chapter marks and thus require either bookmarking or fast-forwarding. Not a big concern, but just a little inconvenient. However, this is still an excellent film, and I would HIGHLY recommend it to any lovers of musicals! Purchase/rent/watch this film without delay! And a note to Fox/Lorber - how about releasing "The Young Girls of Rochefort" out on DVD? I know it was somewhat restored as well and had a limited re-release; this would be an excellent companion piece to Umbrellas of Cherbourg!
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