Jacques Demy's second feature film, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a unique one, to put it lightly. Entirely sung, with no spoken dialog, it seems like the kind of film that immediately splits viewers into two camps before it even starts; those who hate musicals and everybody else.
I tend to dislike musicals. I can't help it. I wasn't looking forward to this at all; with no dialog as respite, I would have to sit through 90 minutes of nonstop singing. And yet, I loved every minute of it. I'm still eating my words.
Umbrellas is more than a musical, if it could ever have been called that in the first place. A bittersweet tale of young love, war, and faith, the film is one of the few musically based films (it's the best I can do) I've ever seen that really took me in. I found myself hoping Guy and Genevieve would end up together in the end, even though I knew it couldn't possibly work out that way.
One student in class remarked that the film seemed too "fake," but in defense of the genre, musicals are "fake" by nature. The audience must go into the film knowing it isn't normal to break out into song and dance in order to ever enjoy it. Questions of the films "realness" are invalid because the about complaint goes without saying. It is the viewer's responsibility to suspend belief in order to fairly assess the film for what it is.
Again, as I've mentioned about Le Bonheur
and A Woman is a Woman, the color in Umbrellas enhances the film tenfold; instead of merely being a film in color, it is a feature that uses color as another means to express itself artistically, using vibrant hues and tints to convey mood and bring the streets of Cherbourg to life.
In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Completely unconventional and vibrantly colorful, it's unlike anything I've ever seen.
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