The very first words spoken in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg are "Is it finished?" This question, a less than auspicious start to a film, is posed by a man to his mechanic. The mechanic, a young man in a bright blue jumpsuit, replies: "The engine still knocks when it's cold, but that's normal." So begins Jacques Demy's 1964 film; with this relatively normal, almost colorless exchange between the two men. Of course, these seemingly mundane lines are sung, because every word of the film is sung. And the seemingly mundane mechanic shop is infused with every color imaginable, because Jacques Demy turns car repair into a feat requiring Technicolor.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, however, does not deal with these Technicolor trifles with the over the top pageantry of an American musical. There is no musical number about how much they "gotta dance!" here, and indeed, there is no dancing. The camera is the thing that follows choreographed patterns, as the film has numerous long takes that move from one character to another without missing a beat. In fact, the entire film is choreographed, and it is only the characters that remain almost motionless, emotionally stagnant amidst Demy's always mobile, always surprising visual splendor. The story at the center of the film is as seemingly banal as the dialogue: a girl loves a boy, the boy goes away to war, the girl gets pregnant (of course), and the boy returns home to find that the girl isn't waiting for him. So goes this bittersweet tale of love and loss. But the film does not just rise above its uninspired plot: it uses its uninspired plot to explore these uninspired people who are its center. And while their real life, provincial French counterparts may not be surrounded by pink patterned wall paper that perfectly matches their pink cardigans, their pink headbands, and their pink umbrellas, there is a fundamental melancholy to the film that belies its candy coated exterior. And those bright colors only serve to heighten the intensity of the emotions: the two main characters, Genevieve and Guy, "je t'aime," "je t'aime," "je t'aime," so often that by any right the words ought to lose all meaning. And yet, when set to Michel Legrand's lovely score and surrounded by the always colorful set design, their repeated proclamations reach a sort of emotional fever pitch. So when Genevieve falls to the ground; in a faint at the merest suggestion that Guy has forgotten her, it's almost believable. Because in this world, where a pretty, pink clad Catherine Deneuve almost fades into the pretty pink background, the visuals and the sound don't just heighten the emotions, they give them an air of verisimilitude that they would otherwise be lacking.
The last scene of the film is set in December, and it is no longer raining but snowing: there's no need for umbrellas in Cherbourg when it's December. And it is at a gas station that Genevieve and Guy have their last meeting: her in a fur coat and mourning, him in another blue jumpsuit. The first thing she says to him, after all of their years apart, is that it's cold. He tells her to come into the office. There are no declarations of love, only a sad lingering sense of what might have been. When asked what type of gasoline she wanted to fill her car with, normal or super, Genevieve chooses super instead of normal, just like she chose fur coats over car mechanics once, a long time ago. So it's cold, and things are fine. They're normal, perhaps. And yes, they are finished. But as she drives away with her child, and his wife returns with his, we realize that maybe, even outside this world of fuchsia wall paper and pseudo operettas, normal might be alright.
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