Les Demoiselles de Rochefort

Director: Jacques Demy | Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, Michel Piccoli, Gene Kelly, Danielle Darrieux, George Chakiris, Grover Dale, Jacques Perrin | France 1967 | 126min | Cert: U

Adding dance to the magical mix that made his earlier The Umbrellas of Cherbourg such a delight, Jacques Demy here created one of the most stylish and joyously exuberant musicals ever made.

Set over one weekend in a pastel-painted Rochefort, Demy's sometimes poignant, always exhilarating masterpiece concerns various characters - twins who teach dance and music (real life siblings Deneuve and Dorléac), their café-proprietor mother (Darrieux), a music-shop owner (Piccoli), his American composer friend (Kelly), an artist in the navy (Perrin) and a couple of visiting carnival performers (Chakiris and Dale) – all involved in a search for love and happiness. Michel Legrand's best-ever score, Demy's witty scenario, Bernard Evein's stunning art direction and the playing of all concerned make for a wonderfully summery celebration of life's seductive capacity to surprise and, just occasionally, to match our dreams.

- Geoff Andrew