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The plot weaves together the lives of twin sisters, Solange and Delphine Garnier (played by real-life sisters Françoise Dorléac and Catherine Deneuve). They teach piano and dance, respectively, but dream of finding success and true love in Paris. Around them orbits a kaleidoscope of characters: a charming fairground worker (George Chakiris), an American composer passing through (Gene Kelly), a lovelorn shopkeeper (Michel Piccoli), and a mysterious murderer subplot that adds a jarring, almost Hitchcockian tension to the whimsy.
Released in 1967, this film is the sunlit counterweight to Demy’s own heartbreaking The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). While Umbrellas used sung-through dialogue to explore the tragedy of lost love, Rochefort explodes onto the screen with the vibrancy of a freshly opened box of crayons. For decades, accessing this masterpiece in its full, intended glory was a challenge. That changed definitively with the release of edition. The Young Girls of Rochefort -1967- Criterion -...
But owning the edition is different from streaming it on Max or Kanopy. Physical media forces you to sit with the film. You read the liner notes. You watch the 4k scan of the original French poster. You slow down to 24 frames per second. The plot weaves together the lives of twin
The Criterion Collection release of features a key critical piece titled "The Young Girls of Rochefort: Not the Same Old Song and Dance" , an essay by renowned critic Jonathan Rosenbaum . Released in 1967, this film is the sunlit
To understand the film, one must first understand the context. In the mid-1960s, France was changing. The stifled conservatism of the post-war era was giving way to the revolutionary fervor that would explode in May 1968. Yet, in the port town of Rochefort (filmed on location), Demy saw not politics, but possibility.