This film has been name-dropped by many recently – or at least by those much more versed in cinema than I. I try not to be swayed by this – although it helps that the IMDb comments contain a good handful of overly snobby comments about how unintelligent others must be for not loving this film. So let's take this as another sign of my lack of intelligence then, because I did not find Umbrellas of Cherbourg to be as great as many suggest. There is a lot to love about it though. The great colors and style throughout; it is dated to a time and place that maybe didn't ever exist – and it looks great, and feels so effortless in its coolness. This quality is very much part of the ending too, however the conclusion to the film is much more than the beautifully shot moment that it is – it carries an emotional weight and honesty to it that really works well.The score adds plenty of color, and fits the production design to a tee. Unfortunately, though the singing left me cold – which understandably had a massive impact on how I was able to enjoy the film. I did not like the singing style throughout. The way it was done seemed to make all the delivery sound the same. It also seemed to reduce the narrative in nuance and detail, leaving it rather broad most of the time. It still had strong moments, where the actors gave more than the material offered them in the dialogue, but mostly it felt limited.For sure it was still a very cool watch, with several great moments – the best of which is a very strong ending – however too much of it failed to land with me.

A three-act musical (or four if one counts the final reunion independently) with all dialogue sung by its characters, the second of its unique kind I've watched so far, the previous one is Tom Hooper's LES MISÉRABLES (2012, 6/10), THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG is director Jacques Demy's third feature, a controversial Palme d'Or winner, more for its groundbreaking technique than its own substance, nevertheless it instantly launched the starlet Catherine Deneuve into stardom and has initiated her extended and illustrious career not only limited in the French cinema.Denueve's glacial beauty is her calling card even in her earlier stage (the dismissive DONKEY SKIN 1970, 4/10, another Demy-Denueve collaboration, does her wrong to disguise her as a free-spirit and spontaneous princess), at the age of 20, she plays a young girl Geneviève living with her widow mother Madame Emery (Vernon), they are running a chic umbrella shop in Cherbourg in 1957, Geneviève's sweetheart is Guy (Castelnuovo), a young boy working in the local garage and lives with his auntie Élise (Perrey) and an orphan girl Madeleine (Farner). The film is slickly divided into three parts: departure, absence and return, Guy is mandatorily drafted in the army in 1958, two lovers have to be split for two years. In the second act, told in Geneviève's perspective, she is pregnant with Guy's baby, but gradually persuaded by her mother to marry an affluent man Roland Cassard (Michel) and they left Cherbourg after the wedlock; and in the third act, Guy returns from the war, becomes despondent of Geneviève's betrayal, but life must go on, he inherits some fortune from Élise and marries Madeleine, and they have a boy named François.Years later, they inadvertently meet at the gas station owned by Guy, Geneviève is accompanied by their young daughter Françoise, always the most awkward reunion for two former lovers, the film ends in a more rational note when they gingerly trade conversations, leaving too many unsaid undertones flowing torrentially, and a timely farewell is a befitting coda to the lingering blues. The story may be a bit sad and nondescript, but the biggest asset is its varicolored locale settings, costumes and coiffure à la mode, even for the not-so-rich protagonists. Guy's brown suit ill-matches his black shoe, nevertheless his azure and pink shirts are divine, as for Denueve and Vernon, the daughter-mother pair dominates the show every time with their distinctive flair for haute couture and color compatibility.Also, let's not forget it is an out-and-out musical, singing voices are all dubbed at post- production nevertheless, French is already mellifluous in speaking, so the singing part sounds like an unremitting bombardment of chansons, which inconveniently degrades into monotony soon after, thus it does demand a more tonality-friendly ear to revel in the excessiveness, after all, it is a love letter to the sentimental romantics, a lovely treat for eyeballs and eardrums equally.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a unique film experiment. It's a musical where every line is sung. Even the mundane lines which have little to do with the film. While this style could be expected to be under threat of being too sweet, the film avoids this by approaching sentimentality with heart-wrenching reality, which the musical aspect of the film highlights. It's a love story. And the film is aware that it begins as a movie love story, addressed by the fact that the protagonist genuinely expects to die if they are parted. Instead of dying, the film explores one of my favourite deep subjects in art, by comparing the expectations of love brought on by pop culture with the harsh reality without being overdramatic. It's nostalgic and extremely genuine.As expected, the omnipresent music is absolutely wonderful and can speak for the film's emotion even without translation. How they managed to fit in the dialogue so fluently is incredible, let alone perform it. The set decoration and costume design is another highlight as well, with bright and bold colours, which the sweeping camera movement compliments perfectly. Despite the broad story, the film is surprisingly small scale with a limited use of sets, but the colour palette makes the world feel huge. There's some incredible use of match cuts as well. Though this film has a fantastic and charming atmosphere, it's the simple and effective storytelling that makes it, particularly the heartbreaking and subtle end. Bona fide classic.9/10

... and they condense every possible information and observation one can make about this awesome movie. I will see it again out of an intense curiosity and nostalgia (I saw it many years ago and left me flabbergasted --patidifuso-- with all its fantastic beauty) after having listened the radio program I mention further down.I write these lines not to review one more time the film, but just to comment that I was listening a radio program from France Culture radio and they made a reportage about Cherbourg, where this movie was shot FIFTY YEARS AGO... and they are celebrating that anniversary in Cherbourg pulling out all the stops.It seems that the filming on that location 50 years ago was a big happening for this small and quiet coal town, apparently very dirty and facing away from the waterfront (now they have changed that concept and all new buildings are facing the waters) since then the huge popularity of this movie worldwide was such a ground shaking event for the inhabitants that they became aware of their own ignored potential and started to change everything, renovating shops and cleaning the city, to such an extent that nowadays the place is unrecognizable from its past dreary image.Japanese tourist go there to visit the umbrella shop where part of the action takes place (still looking and functioning like then) and even French people go there to visit the shop and take pictures!! During these fifty years Catherine Deneuve appeared in 117 films, leaving behind an enormous quantity of documentation to her legendary ice blonde beauty.