Director Jacques Demy tries to out-musical the Hollywood musical. Once the soaring music by Michel Legrand begins it never stops. There isn’t a spoken line of dialogue in the picture. The umbrellas, meanwhile, are in blaring primary colors, as are the costumes, furniture and walls. Everything in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is heightened; watching it, you may feel as if the screen is emitting caffeine. At the start, the mood matches the story, as 17-year-old Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve, only seven years into her career) and 20-year-old Guy (Nino Castelnuovo, as shockingly handsome as Deneuve is gorgeous) are lost in infatuation. Just as Genevieve and Guy are contemplating marriage, though, the Algerian War interrupts, sending him off to battle for two years (their train-station farewell may be the grandest in movie history). The mood, if not the wallpaper, darkens for the rest of the film, even after Genevieve and Guy’s reunion. For all of its early ecstasy, Umbrellas ends on a bittersweet note, one pulled from the romantic realities of the real world rather than the happily-ever-afters of most musicals. It’s a story of naïve young love seen through the affectionate eyes of experience.
