The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Jacques Demy's second film, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, works in between the artifice and the actual. He subverts the musical genre, and creates an unhinged operatic spectacle. The film's naturalistic storyline works in tandem with the artificiality of grandiose musical elements (constant song, choreographed movements, unnatural color schemes, etc). The mundane (everyday banality) becomes spectacle. But precisely what effect does this have on the film overall? These hyperreal elements of the film provoke a tendency for thought in the viewer. These striking oppositions, artificiality and naturalism, are conflated together in order to illuminate particular things about our own world in relation to the world on the screen. It calls into question "realness" itself. In our world, the "real" has become something "more-than-real," and yet we tend to let this illusion of "realness" elude our sense everyday. But, the fact of the matter is, we are surrounded by all of this artificiality, of these copies and models. The film, as bittersweet as it is (because of its bitter reality i.e., the Algerian war and the repetitive banality of middle class life, and the sweetness which comes from the colorful and melodic spectacle), references these models and inflates them into a sort of spectacle (fantastical) world. The naturalism of the film is brought together with its artificial counterpart, but only in order to bring about elements of contrast in order to promote thought regarding the status of reality, both external and internal to the film. This forces us to ask questions about the "realness" (or "hyperrealness") of models in our society: of patriotism, marriage, family, sexuality, gender, class, institutions, etc. It plays with clichés to expose the world of clichés, questioning them in order to threaten them and the loose facade that they create, multiply, and thrive on.