The spirit of Jean Cocteau lingers in every frame of Donkey Skin, a charming fairy tale from musical innovator Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). Notably reigning in the wall-to-wall singing and dancing which filled his previous three films, Demy and musical collaborator Michel Legrand here turned their attention to a well-known European fairy tale from the pen of Charles Perrault (Beauty and the Beast) with the aid of regular Demy muse Catherine Deneuve. The result is odd but utterly endearing, a candy-coloured chamber fantasy ripe for rediscovery.
Recently widowed, a grief-stricken king (Jean Marais) is haunted by the proclamation that he may only marry someone whose loveliness can match that of his departed wife. However, the only woman in the kingdom who can fill such a daunting requirement is his daughter, the lovely princess (Deneuve), who is more than a tad confused by her father’s offer of marriage. A passing prince (Jacques Perrin, future director of Winged Migration) falls madly in love setting off a chain of events which leads to a masked ball of birds and cats, a ring-fitting ceremony for all the maidens of the kingdom, and a most unlikely royal arrival by helicopter.
Blessed with catchy songs and amusing production design, Donkey Skin is a much more modest production than the opulent Umbrellas of Cherbourg and its companion piece, The Young Girls of Rochefort.Though suitable for young viewers, the combination of fairy tale whimsy with surrealist undertones makes this a perfect companion piece for Demy’s English-language fairy tale, The Pied Piper, which injected folksy music into a gothic tale crammed with plagues and(understated) perversion.
LE LION VOLATIL Director: Agnes Varda
They meet every day at Denfert-Rochereau square in Paris’ 14th arrondissement: Clarisse, an up and coming clairvoyant, Lazare, a young man who works in the catacombs of Paris, and the Lion of Belfort, an enormous bronze sculpture that watches over the square. A philosophical exploration of a place, from the heart of the metropolitan jungle.
FRANCE, 2003, FRENCH W/ENGLISH SUBTITLES, COLOUR, DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO, 12 MINS