Jacques Demy Retrospective

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Collection of films shows director’s unique style

The latest director to receive a retrospective at Cinematheque Ontario is Jacques Demy. Previously revived by the Cinematheque with Cinema of Joy, Bitter/Sweet: The Films of Jacques Demy is a comprehensive collection of Demy’s features and shorts as well as films that closely examine Demy’s work as he progressed.
Although the French director was part of the New Wave movement, which emerged out of France during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Demy’s films take on more of a stylized whimsy than his contemporaries. Noted for starting the career of Catherine Deneuve, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a musical where every line is sung. The film’s Eastmancolor fantasy belies a romantic tragedy that unravels by the film’s end. This fantastical style, intertwined with Demy’s penchant for an underlying darkness, represents the bittersweet nature referenced in the title of the presentation.
Demy’s wife and fellow French New Wave director Agnes Varda also contributed her series of films chronicling Demy’s life and work. Jacquot de Nantes A.K.A. Jacquot presents dramatized episodes from Demy’s life interspersed with footage from his films, creating a subversive mixed-media portrait of an artist; Les Demoiselles Ont Eu 25 Ans is Varda’s documentary about Demy’s Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, assembled in a similar fashion; and The World of Jacques Demy includes interviews with Demy’s closest friends and associates along with clips from his work and life.