592 - Donkey Skin, France, 1970. Dir. Jacques Demy.

Saturday, February 2, 2019

592 - Donkey Skin, France, 1970.  Dir. Jacques Demy.

Who wrote fairy tales?

Or rewrote them?

The Brothers Grimm.  Jacob (1785-1863).  Wilhelm (1786-1859).

They wrote or popularized, among other things, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Hansel and Gretel.

Hans Christian Anderson (1805-1875).

He wrote or popularized, among other things, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Princess and the Pea, The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, The Snow Queen, and Thumbelina.

Before either of them was Charles Perrault (1608-1703).

Charles Perrault wrote fairy tales.

He wrote, among other things, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Bluebeard.

And the Tales of Mother Goose.

That's right.  Mother Goose may have written Mother Goose's fairy tales, but if she did, she did it in a fairy tale land of her own.  Because Mother Goose is a fictional character created by Charles Perrault.

Or rather, not a fictional character at all.  But a tradition of storytelling.  That he adapted.  With a phrase that he created.

Charles Perrault also wrote Donkeyskin.  Peau d'Ane.

The Brothers Grimm are German.  Hans Christian Anderson is Danish.  Charles Perrault is French.  So Jacques Demy is telling a story of his own heritage.

In this story the Blue King is married to the most beautiful woman in the world and has a daughter just as beautiful.  We know she is just as beautiful because both roles are played by the same woman, the beloved Catherine Deneuve. 

The Blue King has everything he could ever want, including a donkey that poops out money.

I guess if a goose can lay golden eggs, a donkey can poop out money.

But one day his wife is stricken ill and is on her deathbed.  The Blue King offers never to marry again, as a gesture of his undying love and affection for the Blue Queen.

But she is more reasonable.  They need a male heir.  So he must remarry.  Or else the kingdom will be unstable.

So she makes him make an oath to her that he will never marry anyone except someone more beautiful than she is.

He agrees.

One of his counselors calls it a vanity oath.

He needs a new queen who can provide him with a son.  A queen's beauty is unimportant as long as she is virtuous and fertile.

There's some advice.

But the king adheres to his oath.  He scours the land for a woman more beautiful than his late wife.

Finally, he finds her.  His daughter.

Of course, only his daughter could be more beautiful than his wife, because he was already married to the most beautiful woman in the world.

The Blue King is stuck in his head.  His is so married to his oath that he is not thinking clearly.  So he pursues his daughter.

His daughter knows that it is wrong but does not know what to do.  She has always adored her father, and now he is behaving strangely.  So she turns to her Fairy Godmother.

The Fairy Godmother tries to give her four outs.  First, tell him to make you a dress the color of the weather.  He does.  OK, then, second, tell him to make you a dress the color of the moon.  He does.  OK, then, third, tell him to make you a dress the color of the sun.  He does.  OK, then, fourth, tell him to make you a dress out of donkey skin.  Out of your prized donkey's skin.

He does.  Even though it immediately stops his positive steady free cash flow.

Talk about a poor business decision.

OK, then.  Now what?

RUN!

The Fairy Godmother gives the Princess her own magic wand, which the Princess will be able to use to produce her trunk and other pieces of furniture that she may require later.

The Princess finds refuge in the land of the Red King.  But she is wearing donkey skin, so people think she is the most hideous looking and foul smelling person in the land.

She gets a job as a scullery maid slopping pigs.

So she goes from potentially being one of Lot's daughters to being the Prodigal Daughter all in one day.

But as fate would have it, the Red Prince stumbles upon her when she is alone in her cottage.  She only wears the donkey skin in public.  When she is home alone she wears her dress the color of the sun.  And the Red Prince sees her through the window.  He returns to his castle and pines over her with true love.

His birthday arrives.

He may ask for anything.

He asks that Donkey Skin bake him a birthday cake with her hands.

The request is sent to the Princess, as Donkey Skin, who gladly bakes the cake, using the magic cookbook, and her magic wand, with her separated spirit reading her the instructions out loud as she bakes.

The Princess puts her ring in the cake for him to find.

When it is delivered to him, he eats the cake and finds the ring, and this launches a Cinderella-like search throughout the kingdom.

But instead of finding the right foot to fit the glass slipper, this prince must find the right finger to fit the ring.  The most slender finger in all the land.

All maidens are called to come to the castle to try on the ring.  Many of them beforehand use methods to try to make their fingers more slender.

Who will fit the ring?

You may finish the story now.

And wonder why he goes to the trouble of trying the ring on every finger when he already knows who baked him the cake.  Perhaps this is a PR move.

When you think of a filmer of fairy tales, you might think of, besides Walt Disney (1901-1966), Tim Burton (1958-) or Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975).  There are several others.  But you might not think of Jacques Demy.

But Demy does it.

It might be a fun film for young folks.  It is a departure for Jacques Demy, coming off of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).  He did direct a film in between, Model Shop (1969), reunited with Anouk Aimee.

And good for him to be trying something new.

But it seemed underbudgeted for what it was.  Leaving us with simple sets and poor paint jobs.  With some of the people, for example, painted fully, both skin and clothes, red or blue.

Catherine Deneuve is delightful.  However, the Red Prince does not seem up to her standards.  Which is too bad, as he is played by Jacques Perrin, who worked all the time and appears 18 years later in our beloved film Cinema Paradiso (1988).

But the film as a whole is lightweight.  A lark.

I suppose if you stick to your morals and do not marry your father, you can still have Prince Charming as your husband.

And that is why it is a Fairy Tale.