The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Another wartime loss in a country ravaged by military warfare, Jacques Demy's masterwork is a soaring, bright, intrinsically tragic drama of love lost, found, and permanently dissolved. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a lived-in narrative based on Demy's personal experience, and that word—"experience"—is crucial to the film's success. Remove the musical cues, and you're left with a story about a young man (Nino Castelnuovo) and a young lady (Catherine Deneuve) who fall madly in love, only to be wrenched apart when he's conscripted to fight overseas.

Madame Emery and her lovely 17-year-old daughter Geneviève own a small, failing umbrella shop in the Normandy beach town of Cherbourg. The guy is a dashing young auto mechanic who lives with and looks after his ailing aunt and godmother Elise. Guy and Geneviève are much in love, despite Geneviève's mother's disapproval; they intend to marry and name their first child Françoise. Madeleine, a timid young lady who tends after Guy's aunt, is secretly in love with Guy at the same time. The guy is conscripted to fight in the Algerian War. The night before he departs, he and Geneviève make a vow of eternal love and have intercourse, maybe for the first time.

Detailed Information:
Year: 1964
Director: Jacques Demy
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon
Rating: G
Runtime: 92 minutes