A Room in Town

A shipyard strike is under way in Nantes in 1955. Francois, a worker, meets Edith, unhappily married to a bourgeois man, and under pressure from both the strike and their families the affair moves fast toward tragedy. Jacques Demy wrote and directed. The film is sung from beginning to end; there is not a single spoken scene. The casting plan was entirely different. Demy wanted Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu in the leads. Deneuve insisted on singing her own part this time, Demy refused, and she left; Depardieu withdrew in solidarity and the producer Gaumont pulled out. The roles went to Dominique Sanda and Richard Berry. The result is Demy's darkest work: the form of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg fused with blood and class conflict. Audiences rejected it, selling around 230,000 tickets in France. The critics went the other way and named it the year's best film. It took nine Cesar nominations and won none. Who it is for: viewers who like musical form used on serious material. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot adjust to sung dialogue; the film gives no ground on that.