• Peau d’âne (Donkey Skin)

6/4/24 (Tues)

A French friend had raved about Jacques Demy’s 1970 musical fantasy and practically insisted that I watch it. The director’s earlier Umbrellas had been not only a joyous burst of song and color but a unique approach to musical film, so it didn’t take much persuading to watch this one. I had never heard of it, but it’s apparently a cult classic in France. It’s based on a fairy tale by Charles Perrault, author of, among others, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, all of which feature in this film in some form or other.

The king (Jean Marais) rules the Blue Kingdom on the strength of his prize magic donkey, which literally poops money in endless quantities. With his queen (Catherine Deneuve) on her deathbed, the heartbroken king promises her that he will remarry a beautiful woman in order to produce a male heir. After searching the kingdom, he realizes that the most beautiful woman in the land is his own daughter (also Deneuve) and resolves to marry her.

Horrified, the daughter is coached by her fairy godmother (a glamorous Delphine Seyrig) to make unreasonable demands, but the king makes good on all of them, including murdering his donkey and giving her the skin. Seeing no hope of dissuading him, she ultimately runs away wrapped in the donkey’s skin in disguise as a dirty scullery maid and finds employment in the Red Kingdom. There, she is spotted from afar by the handsome young prince, who seeks to take her as his bride. When she secretly sends her ring baked in a cake, he orders a search of all the eligible women in the kingdom and says he will marry the one who can wear the ring.

The women of the kingdom gather excitedly at the palace, but the ring doesn’t fit any of them. Finally, the scullery maid steps forward – and naturally she is the one. At their wedding, her father and the fairy godmother arrive together in a helicopter (!) and announce that they are getting married as well. (The fairy godmother to the stunned princess: “I’m marrying your father, darling. Try to look pleased.”)

The vivid colors, the wild costumes, the blue and red painted soldiers and horses, the French castles – Demy goes all out. The sets were surprisingly bland by his standards, but all in all the film looked great.

The fairy tale itself, however, is pretty lightweight. The king kills the donkey, the very source of his wealth, but nothing seems to change. The prince knows exactly where his Cinderella is, having spotted her at her hut, so what’s with the big search? The king and fairy godmother both hint at some prior issues between them, but it is revealed that the latter purposely steered the daughter from her father essentially to eliminate a rival – what was that about? The film lazily leaves out too many loose ends, bringing in potentially interesting plot strands only to abandon them when it becomes inconvenient. Obviously this is a fairy tale in its own world, but the story still has to make sense. I found it irritating. The numerous anachronisms, like the helicopter, were presumably intentional but seemed too clever for their own good. The incest part was icky, so I am glad that got tossed aside. I had thought initially that it was a ploy on the king’s part to spur his daughter to marry, à la Chishu Ryu in Late Spring, but it seems he really did intend to go through with it. Yuck.

The songs by Michel Legrand are charming, especially the number in the kitchen where the girl appears simultaneously as the princess (baking a cake) and scullery maid (dictating the recipe). In terms of the acting, Deneuve just has to be stunningly lovely, which she does very well, while Marais and Jacques Perrin as the prince basically go through the motions. The only memorable performance is Seyrig, who manages to give her role both style and spunk.

The film has its charms, but the gaps in logic are grating. I don’t get the universal praise for this film. Not my thing.