Associated with · 1967
The French New Wave
Jacques Demy's song-and-dance tribute to the Hollywood musical, completing his trilogy with Lola and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg; a Left Bank film that reaches, like Umbrellas, for pure color and feeling.
Film
The Young Girls of Rochefort
by Jacques Demy
The Young Girls of Rochefort is Jacques Demy's love letter to the Hollywood musical. Twin sisters — a dance teacher and a composer, played by the real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac — dream of love and of leaving their port town for Paris, while a travelling fair, a sailor-painter, and a visiting American composer weave a set of near-miss romances around them. Unlike the sung-through Umbrellas of Cherbourg, this one has spoken dialogue and full song-and-dance numbers, with Gene Kelly himself in the cast and a celebrated Michel Legrand score. It completes Demy's loose trilogy, and beneath its bright surface runs a thread of melancholy.
- 1967
- 126-minute feature, Eastmancolor — a song-and-dance musical
About Jacques Demy
A town in pastel
Demy took the real port town of Rochefort and repainted its square in pastels, then filled it with dancing. Where The Umbrellas of Cherbourg had been sung from first line to last, Rochefort mixes spoken scenes with big song-and-dance numbers, an open homage to the MGM musicals Demy loved. The casting makes the tribute literal: Gene Kelly plays the visiting American composer, and George Chakiris, of West Side Story, is one of the fair's showmen.
Michel Legrand's jazz-inflected score carries it, and the sisters at its center were sisters in life — Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac, playing the twins Delphine and Solange.
A weekend of near-misses
The plot is built from coincidence. Maxence, a sailor and painter, has painted his ideal woman without ever meeting her; the face is essentially Delphine's, hanging in a local gallery. Solange, a composer, crosses paths with Andy, the American, and the two are drawn together but part without exchanging names. Their mother, Yvonne, turns out to have long ago left the man who still loves her, the music-shop owner Simon.
By the end the couples align — but obliquely, and often just out of frame: Demy pointedly does not show Delphine and Maxence finally meet. Happiness arrives, but the film keeps it at the edge of the picture.
Sweetness and shadow
For all its brightness the film carries a darker thread — a running subplot about a murder committed by a mild, unremarkable regular of the town, deliberately jarring against the sunny numbers. It is the melancholy that runs under all of Demy's work, kept just legible beneath the color.
The film completes the loose trilogy that began with Lola (1961) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), reuniting Demy with Deneuve and with Legrand. Its bittersweet undertow is why critics have always taken it as more than a pastel pastiche.
Afterlife
The film was shadowed by tragedy soon after its release: Françoise Dorléac died in a car crash in June 1967, only months after the premiere, at twenty-five. Years later Agnès Varda, Demy's wife, returned to the film in her documentary The Young Girls Turn 25 (1993) and, through her company Ciné-Tamaris, restored Demy's work.
Rochefort has since been claimed by a new generation of filmmakers — Damien Chazelle among them cites Demy's musicals as a direct model for La La Land — and remains the fullest expression of Demy's belief that a film could be pure color, music, and longing.
Timeline
1966
Demy films in Rochefort, repainting the town square in pastels, with a Michel Legrand score and Gene Kelly in the cast.
March 1967
Released in France — a song-and-dance musical completing Demy's trilogy after Lola and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
June 1967
Françoise Dorléac, who plays Solange, dies in a car crash at twenty-five, months after the premiere.
1993
Agnès Varda revisits the film in her documentary The Young Girls Turn 25.
2010s
Restored by Varda's Ciné-Tamaris and cited as a direct influence on later musicals, including La La Land.
Frequently asked questions
What is The Young Girls of Rochefort about?
Twin sisters in the port town of Rochefort — a dance teacher and a composer — dream of love and of leaving for Paris, while a travelling fair, a sailor-painter, and a visiting American composer weave a set of near-miss romances around them. Jacques Demy directed it in 1967 as a song-and-dance musical, with Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac as the sisters.
How is it different from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg?
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is sung from first line to last, with no spoken dialogue. Rochefort is a conventional musical with spoken scenes and full song-and-dance numbers — an open homage to the Hollywood musical, complete with Gene Kelly in the cast.
Were Deneuve and Dorléac really sisters?
Yes. Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac were sisters in real life, playing the twins Delphine and Solange. Dorléac died in a car crash in June 1967, only months after the film's premiere, at the age of twenty-five.
How does the film fit Jacques Demy's work?
It completes his loose trilogy with Lola (1961) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), reuniting him with Catherine Deneuve and composer Michel Legrand. Demy belonged to the New Wave's Left Bank, and the film is his fullest tribute to the American musical.
Did The Young Girls of Rochefort influence La La Land?
Yes. Damien Chazelle has repeatedly named Demy's musicals — Rochefort and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg — as direct models for La La Land, from the pastel color to the bittersweet romance.
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