Knight at the Movies ARCHIVES
French Me Up:
Donkey Skin-Immortal
8-10-05 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Francophiles are going to be very happy this weekend when a new 35mm print of Demy’s 1970 fairy tale musical,
Donkey Skin and the French sci-fi digital effects spectacular Immortal (ad vitam), land in Chicago. Dedicated
cinema fantasy fans will also want to put these two films in the “don’t miss” category.
Donkey Skin, based on a lesser known Perrault fairytale (a sort of Cinderella story in reverse), was the third
collaboration between French icon Catherine Deneuve and writer/director Jacques Demy. It was released in 1970
after the international acclaim that greeted The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort. But
Donkey Skin (or Peau d’âne in its native tongue – and doesn’t that sound much more romantic?), though the least
known of the trio, is in my estimation, the best. It’s a feast for the effete sophisticate: a fairy tale that pays visual
homage to Jean Cocteau, co-stars his lover Jean Marais, focuses on the ethereal exquisiteness of Deneuve, and
features a raft of delicate, witty Michel Legrand and Demy pop songs.
The story centers on a recently widowed king (Marais) who has promised his late wife (Deneuve) that he will not
wed again until he finds a worthy successor in the beauty department. Naturally, his daughter (also played by
Deneuve), the princess, is the only candidate with the requisite good looks. The idea of incest doesn’t seem to
bother the king but the princess isn’t exactly thrilled. With the aid of the Lilac Fairy (the worldly Delphine Seyrig),
she at first demands that her father deliver three impossible to make dresses before agreeing to the marriage.
When that fails, she next demands the skin of the donkey. Though this donkey is the key to the kingdom’s wealth
(it defecates precious jewels and golden coins!) the king only momentarily pauses before giving in. At this point,
the fairy godmother helps the princess disguise herself in the donkey skin so she can escape to the countryside
where further adventures – and a handsome prince await.
The sweet, put upon Deneuve (we are far from Indochine territory here) shines in a justly famous sequence in
which she sings while baking a “love cake” in order to capture the prince and early in the film when glimpsed
playing a blue organ in the castle courtyard oblivious to her father’s plans. Meanwhile, Marais, decked out in silver
lame and purple (it’s an outfit that must have inspired LaBelle’s costume designer), stomps about in his best
Beauty and the Beast prissy fashion, barking orders at his blue faced servants (cousins to the orange faced Oompa
Loompa’s?) and demanding the return of his daughter. Eventually, he succumbs to the charms of the still sexy
Seyrig, a sort of French matchmaker in the Dolly Levi mold.
The visual delights are greatly enhanced by the Legrand-Demy songs which are at once utterly charming and
philosophical (“Caught on the nail of memory/love dies”) and are arranged in that late 60s Burt Bacharach-Herb
Alpert-Sergio Mendes style.
The whole can accurately be described as a creampuff. In French (natch) with subtitles.
Another fairy tale, a futuristic one is Immortal, the first film that Yugoslav born graphic novelist Enki Bilal has
directed (and co-written). Like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City, the French made Immortal
was filmed placing actors against digital backgrounds. Like its American counterparts, Immortal is visually stylish
and visually dazzling and emotionally tepid. Still in its infancy, these all-CGI motivated pictures are quickly losing
their potency for me. The scenic panache fritters away without some kind of story and character to hang onto.
Though the film is set in New York of 2095, however, it still contains plenty of typical French musings on the soul
of man (“I am the vampire of my own heart” one character rambles on) and a concern for fashion (at one point,
two male characters actually banter about who’s going to get to pick out the clothes for the body their sharing).
The plot concerns a mysterious pyramid hovering over Manhattan, home to three Egyptian gods. Horus, god of the
sky (he with the eagle for a head and the body of a circuit queen) needs to repopulate in seven days or perish. The
other two gods stay in the pyramid playing Monolopy while Horus goes in search of the perfect male specimen to
inhabit and a comely female specimen to copulate with. He finds both in our hero Nikopol (the East German
heartthrob Thomas Kretschmann) and the blue haired heroine Jill, she of the special powers (Linda Hardy).
Charlotte Rampling plays Elma Turner, a doctor trying to figure out why Jill is different from other humans in a
world where organ transplanting and plastic surgery is as common as getting a new pair of glasses.
There are at least two subplots and many characters that are completely CGI created. Leave it to the stylish
French cinema to make implicit what many American action and sci-fi films have danced around recently – that on
a certain level, these movies are all just video games anyway. Like a video game, the film, which is highly
reminiscent of The Fifth Element and Blade Runner, is extraordinarily diverting while you’re watching/playing it
but mostly disappears from memory once the game/movie stops.
Bilal, who has combined two of his three Nikopol graphic novels into the movie, has a large following in the comic
book world and has created a visual tour de force with this first movie. He is greatly aided by the physical
presence of his two stars, Kretschmann and Hardy, and by Rampling, who, even in a throwaway role, burns a hole
in the screen. That these three register with a force that is only suggested by the CGI characters certainly bodes
well for flesh and blood actors. Even with all the visual pyrotechnics on display here, it’s still Kretschmann’s
haunted eyes, Hardy’s impossibly gorgeous face and Rampling’s world weary manner that still resonate. Humans,
it seems, are still the best special effects. In English.
Donkey Skin-Immortal
8-10-05 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Francophiles are going to be very happy this weekend when a new 35mm print of Demy’s 1970 fairy tale musical,
Donkey Skin and the French sci-fi digital effects spectacular Immortal (ad vitam), land in Chicago. Dedicated
cinema fantasy fans will also want to put these two films in the “don’t miss” category.
Donkey Skin, based on a lesser known Perrault fairytale (a sort of Cinderella story in reverse), was the third
collaboration between French icon Catherine Deneuve and writer/director Jacques Demy. It was released in 1970
after the international acclaim that greeted The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort. But
Donkey Skin (or Peau d’âne in its native tongue – and doesn’t that sound much more romantic?), though the least
known of the trio, is in my estimation, the best. It’s a feast for the effete sophisticate: a fairy tale that pays visual
homage to Jean Cocteau, co-stars his lover Jean Marais, focuses on the ethereal exquisiteness of Deneuve, and
features a raft of delicate, witty Michel Legrand and Demy pop songs.
The story centers on a recently widowed king (Marais) who has promised his late wife (Deneuve) that he will not
wed again until he finds a worthy successor in the beauty department. Naturally, his daughter (also played by
Deneuve), the princess, is the only candidate with the requisite good looks. The idea of incest doesn’t seem to
bother the king but the princess isn’t exactly thrilled. With the aid of the Lilac Fairy (the worldly Delphine Seyrig),
she at first demands that her father deliver three impossible to make dresses before agreeing to the marriage.
When that fails, she next demands the skin of the donkey. Though this donkey is the key to the kingdom’s wealth
(it defecates precious jewels and golden coins!) the king only momentarily pauses before giving in. At this point,
the fairy godmother helps the princess disguise herself in the donkey skin so she can escape to the countryside
where further adventures – and a handsome prince await.
The sweet, put upon Deneuve (we are far from Indochine territory here) shines in a justly famous sequence in
which she sings while baking a “love cake” in order to capture the prince and early in the film when glimpsed
playing a blue organ in the castle courtyard oblivious to her father’s plans. Meanwhile, Marais, decked out in silver
lame and purple (it’s an outfit that must have inspired LaBelle’s costume designer), stomps about in his best
Beauty and the Beast prissy fashion, barking orders at his blue faced servants (cousins to the orange faced Oompa
Loompa’s?) and demanding the return of his daughter. Eventually, he succumbs to the charms of the still sexy
Seyrig, a sort of French matchmaker in the Dolly Levi mold.
The visual delights are greatly enhanced by the Legrand-Demy songs which are at once utterly charming and
philosophical (“Caught on the nail of memory/love dies”) and are arranged in that late 60s Burt Bacharach-Herb
Alpert-Sergio Mendes style.
The whole can accurately be described as a creampuff. In French (natch) with subtitles.
Another fairy tale, a futuristic one is Immortal, the first film that Yugoslav born graphic novelist Enki Bilal has
directed (and co-written). Like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City, the French made Immortal
was filmed placing actors against digital backgrounds. Like its American counterparts, Immortal is visually stylish
and visually dazzling and emotionally tepid. Still in its infancy, these all-CGI motivated pictures are quickly losing
their potency for me. The scenic panache fritters away without some kind of story and character to hang onto.
Though the film is set in New York of 2095, however, it still contains plenty of typical French musings on the soul
of man (“I am the vampire of my own heart” one character rambles on) and a concern for fashion (at one point,
two male characters actually banter about who’s going to get to pick out the clothes for the body their sharing).
The plot concerns a mysterious pyramid hovering over Manhattan, home to three Egyptian gods. Horus, god of the
sky (he with the eagle for a head and the body of a circuit queen) needs to repopulate in seven days or perish. The
other two gods stay in the pyramid playing Monolopy while Horus goes in search of the perfect male specimen to
inhabit and a comely female specimen to copulate with. He finds both in our hero Nikopol (the East German
heartthrob Thomas Kretschmann) and the blue haired heroine Jill, she of the special powers (Linda Hardy).
Charlotte Rampling plays Elma Turner, a doctor trying to figure out why Jill is different from other humans in a
world where organ transplanting and plastic surgery is as common as getting a new pair of glasses.
There are at least two subplots and many characters that are completely CGI created. Leave it to the stylish
French cinema to make implicit what many American action and sci-fi films have danced around recently – that on
a certain level, these movies are all just video games anyway. Like a video game, the film, which is highly
reminiscent of The Fifth Element and Blade Runner, is extraordinarily diverting while you’re watching/playing it
but mostly disappears from memory once the game/movie stops.
Bilal, who has combined two of his three Nikopol graphic novels into the movie, has a large following in the comic
book world and has created a visual tour de force with this first movie. He is greatly aided by the physical
presence of his two stars, Kretschmann and Hardy, and by Rampling, who, even in a throwaway role, burns a hole
in the screen. That these three register with a force that is only suggested by the CGI characters certainly bodes
well for flesh and blood actors. Even with all the visual pyrotechnics on display here, it’s still Kretschmann’s
haunted eyes, Hardy’s impossibly gorgeous face and Rampling’s world weary manner that still resonate. Humans,
it seems, are still the best special effects. In English.
"Oh l'amour, l'amour..."
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