Synopsis
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, 1964) is Jacques Demy's sung-through romance you can watch online on iFILM. There is no spoken dialogue at all — every line is set to Michel Legrand's score. A teenage Catherine Deneuve, in her breakout role, plays Geneviève, who works in her mother's umbrella shop.
The setting is a French port town in the late 1950s. Geneviève is in love with Guy (Nino Castelnuovo), a young auto mechanic, but he's drafted into the war in Algeria for two years. They spend one night together before he ships out. Then comes a pregnancy, silence from the front, and a mother's practical push toward a wealthy jeweler's proposal. Demy splits the story into three movements — departure, absence, a reunion years on — and each one cuts deeper than the last.
The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and picked up three Oscar nominations. Demy painted Cherbourg's walls and storefronts in candy colors on purpose, so the bright frames would argue with the bittersweet ending. This is that rare musical with no tidy happy ending, anchored by a theme, "I Will Wait for You," that long outgrew the movie. Stream The Umbrellas of Cherbourg online on iFILM.
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