LogFAQs > #933511637

16. Les parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)

JONA: 1
Scarlet: 5
Genny: 11
KBM: 12
Karo: 22
Johnbobb: 30
Inviso: 32

JONA - Ive never even heard of this movie before the list but Im so glad I watched it. I admire the movie just for the fact that they even went with the style of having both songs and dialogue in time with the music. It makes every line worth paying attention to. Everything flows so well. On top of that is the story and vibe being quite dramatic. It might be a bit too overdramatic but thats also why I like this movie. I ended up being invested in the romance despite it being on the simple side. I liked that we get different perspectives and the movie does a great job at deciding when to switch perspectives. I love the bittersweet feeling of the ending.
Favorite Song: Dans le magasin de parapluies

Scarlet - This is where the list actually begins to couple good music with good writing. Umbrellas is a fascinating piece of filmography, and Catherine Deneuve has a beautiful charisma that cant be ignored.
Best Song: I Will Wait for You

Genny - Pourquoi? This one had the opposite effect on me than Dancer in the Dark where perhaps I didn't enjoy it on some levels quite as much, but the emotions it elicits felt completely deserved, raw, and real. I know why the events of the film had to unfold the way they did, but a part of me will always question why Genevive couldn't hold out for Guy just a little longer. Ah well... C'est la vie!

KBM - Why I Chose It: Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, and nominated for five Academy Awards (interestingly, over two separate years), this French film is quite unique in that it is essentially an opera written for the screen. Entirely sung-through, the film marked an international career breakthrough for both leading lady Catherine Deneuve and composer Michel Legrand, both of whom went on to have successful careers in Hollywood as well as France. The film's main theme, known in English as I Will Wait For You, went on to become a hit and has been covered countless times by various artists, including the likes of Frank Sinatra, Cher, Tony Bennett, and Louis Armstrong. Connie Francis' version of the song was notably used in the Futurama episode Jurassic Bark.

My Thoughts: Though the plot is at times a bit thin, this movie ended up working quite well for me. I can definitely see where it wouldn't be for everyone, but between Michel Legrand's sweeping, through-sung musical score, the beautifully colorful sets and costumes, and the darker, more melancholic themes lurking just beneath the surface of what otherwise appears to be a pretty standard romance plotline, this film just has a hell of a lot going for it. Particularly heartbreaking is the way Guy is treated by pretty much everyone in his life after coming back from the war, a sad but still-relevant commentary on how soldiers are used by their government and then just expected to slip easily back into civilian life like nothing is wrong. It probably helped that I do speak a decent amount of French and didn't have to rely too heavily on the less-than-artfully translated subtitles to follow what was going on.

Favorite Song: Je ne pourrai jamais vivre sans toi (I Will Wait For You)

Karo - This French girl is the daughter of a struggling umbrella shop proprietor, which is probably having trouble because it is a store that only sells umbrellas and nothing else. I dunno, maybe you should diversify and sell like fucking galoshes or something.
Anyway she falls in love with a mechanic who gets drafted into the army, and the two of them make a promise to be faithful and meet again in two years, a pact that ends up broken for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Seriously, what happens is that this creepy 30s-something motherfucker sees our teenage protagonist one time in the shop and decides he's going to marry her. She doesn't like him or even KNOW him until one day she just decides to randomly be his bride. Her jilted lover comes back from the army and marries his mother's caretaker just because.
Indeed, all the film's romances are forced and hackneyed, lacking any sort of chemistry or even a modicum of sense of how human beings work. This guy didnt say anything bad about pregnancy? How romantic, I'm in loooove! Oh hey my girl didn't wait for me and my mom just died? Well no worries there's this random maid here I guess she'll do as a dick warmer if she tries hard enough! Jesus, even George Lucas can write better romance than this.
The musical style was interesting at first, but after an hour and a half of people talk-singing mundane french life with more melodrama than a teenage girl's diary, that was way more than enough and I almost had a headache. Sacre Bleu.

Score: 49/100

Best Song: Il n'y a pas tellement de chansons dans ce film qu'il y a des gens qui parlent chaque partie du script en couplet en parlant de croissants ou autre.

Johnbobb - Sing-talking for the entire runtime of a musical can sometimes get exhausting, but since it was all in French, everything sounded a bit more elegant (which ultimately made me laugh when the subtitles were things like "Hey, can I borrow a smoke? Gonna go see a movie after work." It's difficult to place exactly why I didn't like it all that much. Everything is done fairly well, but ultimately, I just wasn't nearly as invested in the main couple as I would've needed to be to really get something out of it. Instead, it just kind of felt like a drag after getting over the initial fascination.
Favorite song: n/a

Inviso - Full disclosure, I could not find subtitles for this film, so Im going almost entirely on emotion and a plot synopsis I read after the fact. First off, I hate the formatting of this film. The fact that it goes the Les Mis route of having everything sung, rather than having a handful of strong, set piece songsterrible. And given how slow and melodramatic the plot is, that sort of structuring just becomes all the more laggy and unbearable. The plot feels super generic too: guys falls in love and gets a girl pregnant; guy goes off the war; girl, not knowing if hes coming home, marries a sugar daddy; guy comes back and winds up hooking up with someone else when the love of his life is gone. This does not warrant a musical. Finally, all this film has going for it is the latent memories I have of Jurassic Bark, since that ending song is ALL OVER this film. So yeahbland and not worth watching as a foreign film.