Donkey Skin

Jacques Demy's musical from the Charles Perrault tale. The source dates to 1694 and its core is still disturbing: a dying queen makes her husband promise to remarry only someone more beautiful than her, and the king finds that the only person fitting the description is his own daughter. To escape, the princess demands the impossible: a dress the colour of the weather, then the moon, then the sun. The king has all three made. Finally she asks for the hide of the magic donkey that is the source of the kingdom's wealth; she gets that too, puts it on and runs into the forest. Deneuve plays the princess and Jean Marais the king. Casting Marais is an open nod to Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast. Delphine Seyrig is the Lilac Fairy, guiding the girl while quietly serving her own interests, the strangest and most modern figure in the tale. Michel Legrand wrote the score. Demy lets anachronism run loose; a helicopter arrives in the finale. It was Demy's biggest box-office success in France, with 2,198,576 admissions. It was restored in 2003 and again in 2014 under Agnès Varda's supervision. Who it is for: viewers who like sweet-looking, dark-centred fairy tales and 1960s French musicals. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot take a threat of incest set to songs. The film softens the subject but does not remove it.