Jacques Demy, The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), DCP

THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (Les demoiselles de Rochefort, Jacques Demy, 1967). Liked La La Land? You’ll love this! Jacques Demy followed up his international smash hit The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with another musical about missed connections and second chances, this one a more effervescent, less melancholic confection. Or is it? Twins Delphine and Solange, a dance instructor and a music teacher (played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac), long for big-city life; when a fair comes through their quiet port town, so does the possibility of escape. With its jazzy Michel Legrand score, pastel paradise of costumes, and divine supporting cast (West Side Story’s George Chakiris, Grover Dale, Madame De…’s Danielle Darrieux, Contempt and Belle de Jour’s Michel Piccoli, and a sublime supporting turn from none other than Gene Kelly), The Young Girls of Rochefort is a tribute to Hollywood optimism from sixties French cinema’s preeminent dreamer. Demy pays tribute to the American musical yet mixes in accoutrements of French poetic realism: dreams and reality coexist more strangely and stubbornly here than in most other musicals. It is series curator Carlos Valladares’ favorite film!