The Young Girls of Rochefort

In Rochefort the twin sisters Delphine and Solange teach dance and music and both dream of getting out of the town. A fair arrives, two dancers arrive, an American composer arrives. Everybody is looking for somebody and they keep turning up in the same place at the wrong moment. Jacques Demy wrote and directed, with music by Michel Legrand. The twins are played by Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac, sisters in life as well. Gene Kelly plays a concert pianist, George Chakiris and Grover Dale are the dancers who come with the fair, Danielle Darrieux plays the mother and Michel Piccoli is in the cast. Demy's obsession with colour shows in the most concrete production detail: thousands of shutters in Rochefort were repainted in bright pastels to fit the film's overall scheme. The town itself was turned into a set. Kelly and Chakiris are the film's salute to the Hollywood musical, and Demy built that deliberately. Kelly was fifty-one when it was made and his dancing was still immaculate, though his voice was dubbed. It did business in France and not in the United States, where a dubbed English version went out. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Score. Who it is for: viewers who like French musicals and cinema built on colour. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a plot. It runs almost entirely on encounters and near misses and carries no dramatic tension.