Did you ever enjoy the Ode to Joy? I restrain myself to enjoy it only once a year (except it appears in movies or comes to my mind to whistle it) to not get used to it. Preferrably I go to a concert or when I'm in a really bad mood.
With movies it's sometimes the same. You may just enjoy the joyful whole thing. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort is one of the rare genre movies (from a genge i usually dismiss) I enjoyed a lot.
The Ouverture introduces us to some boats on trucks on a hovering bridge; with that, the circus begins. We have our Mr. Niceguy, white hair, white sailor's uniform, who happens to have lost his woman ideal. The two hard workers, enjoying their volatile life. Some parents apart and two incredibly *arrr* twins (Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac; last movie of her).
Everybods is searching for his love. Some find it in a picture they paint, others in the third movement. And all they have and give enjoyment with wunderful, colorful, well choreographed dancing and rhymes. I have never been so proud of not understanding a foreign language but reading the subs. French is so much fitting the sense of the movie. Amour tout jour. Seldom I was so amused by the same procedure as every scene (Dinner for One is THE 'same procedure' movie to recommend, by the way), when someone has an idea, something to say, continuing to a solo part and in the end everyone on the street dances.
Sure, it's not depicting reality; with some exceptions: There are some pacing parts that make you think of where everything could lead to. The two circus workers I wrote of try to make the twins part of their life, but somehow only make a single appointment to one stage show. Some others always miss their unknown love by seconds, which keeps the suspense, as Hitchcock would say. But it's not scary at all. It's sunny. Singin' in the French sun.
Did I mention the colors? Pink hydrants, how could anything go wrong with that? A fully choreographed baskedball game on stage! You see both sisters having a birthmark at the same place on their backs.
If you happen to have a bad mood, want to listen to a great score and see very short skirts fly, this is the recommendation.
