Chantons-nous sous la pluie!

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg is one of my touchstone films.  Burberry’s fine and good, but no one has done more for the simple trench than Catherine Deneuve as Geneviève.  I’ll warn you that the entire script is sung, so if you aren’t a fan of musicals chances are this film will be aural torture.  In that case, watch it on mute – it’s that good.  Visually stunning, a story so simple you don’t have to understand the dialogue to know the tale (this is a good thing,) and some of the best use of colour film has ever seen.  Don’t believe me?  Check this video out:  (I apologize in advance for the lamentable jazz version of movie’s theme song.)

This next video not only highlights the beauty of the film, it exhibits some great “song as speech.”  It’s pretty remarkable how all of the actors in Parapluies sing their lines as though it was the most common thing in the world.  This isn’t a musical in the common, Phantom of the Opera sense.

When I was little my sisters and I went through stages where we’d sing all of our conversations.  If you can imagine, my mum wasn’t a fan (what we lack in tunefulness we compensated with vigor and crescendos.)  This movie is the realization of our dream.

Ok, ok it isn’t anything that lofty, but it’s a fantastically gorgeous film.  If you don’t crave a trench coat, pastel cardigans, and hair ribbons after watching this I’ll wear white tennis shoes with little socks over nylons when I go to work.

Finally, I swear this genius art installation was inspired by Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.

Installation by Spain by Ingo Maurer, photograph by Jesús Manuel Nieto Bobadilla.