A charming American composer visiting an old friend, who falls instantly for Solange after a chance encounter on the street.
The real-life sisters play Delphine and Solange Garnier, twin sisters teaching music and dance in Rochefort. Sadly, this was Dorléac's final film before her tragic death shortly after its release.
The music by Michel Legrand is nothing short of iconic. The main theme, with its distinctive clavichord hook, is one of the most recognizable melodies in French cinema history. The songs drive the narrative forward, expressing a longing for "the ideal man" or the excitement of "the fair." The choreography, led by Norman Maen, is robust and athletic, utilizing the open spaces of the town square and the traveling fair in a way that feels distinctly un-theatrical yet entirely staged. It captures the 1960s optimism where pop art and jazz collided. The Young Girls of Rochefort -1967- Criterion -...
He describes the musical form here not as a story with "musical eruptions," but as a "continuous state of delirious being" where pedestrians might suddenly start dancing around a walking star.
Unlike its predecessor, where every line of dialogue is sung in recitative, Rochefort utilizes a more traditional musical structure—spoken dialogue intercut with elaborate song-and-dance numbers. Yet, Demy’s signature touch remains: the colors are hyper-saturated, the romance is destined, and the melancholy of missed connections lingers just beneath the surface of the brightest smile. A charming American composer visiting an old friend,
(Danielle Darrieux), the twins' mother, regrets leaving the love of her life years ago because of his ridiculous last name, completely oblivious to the fact that he has opened a shop just around the corner.
The narrative of The Young Girls of Rochefort operates like a giant, sunlit clockwork machine. Set over the course of a single weekend during a town fair, the story follows twins Delphine (Deneuve), a dance instructor, and Solange (Dorléac), a music composer. Both long to escape their provincial life for the artistic hubs of Paris. The music by Michel Legrand is nothing short of iconic
Audio interviews and essays by prominent film scholars that contextualize Demy’s place within the French New Wave, detailing how his unapologetic love for Hollywood fantasy was its own form of radical filmmaking. A Bitter-Sweet Legacy
By 1967, Kelly’s star in Hollywood had waned. Demy, an obsessive fan of Singin’ in the Rain , wrote a role specifically for him: Andy, the American composer passing through Rochefort. Kelly, fluent in French, performs his own dubbing and choreographs his own solo number.
One of the most remarkable aspects of The Young Girls of Rochefort , thoroughly highlighted in the Criterion supplemental materials, is Demy’s refusal to shoot the movie on a Hollywood backlot. Instead, he and his production designer, Bernard Evein, took over the actual town of Rochefort.