One of a kind Jaques Demy film, starring Deneuve, adapted from a Perrault tale. 1970.
Colours! Costumes! Lights! Helicopters? It is difficult what to know what to make of the animals (Franju? Cocteau in various ways), the painted horses and faces. Surrealism? Not really. More like fantasy, obviously deeply Freudian, on at least the surface. Or 'just' a fairytale, which is always more, but don't look too hard. It all looks esecially weird beacuse the sets aren't actually too grand; there's not a ceiling in site.
Any easy free camera keeps well back to give us full bodies in the costumes, and a good look at the surrounding mis-en-scene. We also keep a distance from Deneuve, lit softly, as she too changes surprising us in being human. The two very different stories here are the gamut of the fairytale.
Demy makes both sides, in his attempt, of the Melies/ Lumiere distinction. The ordinary in the extraordinary, the extraordinary in the ordinary. One is still rather uncertain what on earth he is up to, if he is up to anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment