The “shattering, transporting” movie so good Damien Chazelle would show it to aliens
It felt like everyone and their dog was obsessed with La La Land when it was released back in 2016, and a decade on, it feels like the hype was justified as people still love the musical romance, which won Emma Stone her first Oscar, widely regarded as a modern classic.
Directed by Damien Chazelle, the filmmaker had the idea brewing in his head since 2010, drawing from iconic musicals from decades gone by, paying homage to some obvious examples of Hollywood movie musical excellence, like An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain. But while La La Land feels unmistakably American with its Los Angeles setting, one of its biggest influences was a French film, a title that Chazelle calls his all-time favourite.
The director, who has also helmed popular titles like Whiplash and Babylon, cites the French New Wave film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg as his ultimate inspiration, and he’s not alone in this predilection, as Jacques Demy’s candy-coloured musical also informed Greta Gerwig’s approach to Barbie, with its saturated set design that feels caught somewhere between real life and fantasy.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg was released in 1964 as Demy’s third feature, although it stood as his first musical, and while his other films, such as Lola and Bay of Angels, were quite acclaimed, it was this film that really drew attention, with every word sung and every shot practically a painting.
We follow Catherine Deneuve’s Geneviève as she falls in love with Nino Castelnuovo’s Guy, only for the pair to be separated when he is drafted into the Algerian War, but despite the fact that she discovers she is pregnant, with Guy away for so long, she eventually marries another man, even though she’s still in love with the former.
It’s a tragic romance, and the scene in which the pair reunite years later is one of the most beautiful ever committed to celluloid. In fact, Chazelle thinks the movie is so beautiful that he would show it to aliens if he ever got the chance, explaining his choice in an interview with CBS Mornings.
“If I had to send a movie to aliens and kind of describe what cinema is, what this thing called cinema is, I think that’s a movie that doesn’t even make sense on paper in a way, ‘cause it’s opera but not opera. It’s real but completely fake. It’s happy but heartbreaking. Just doesn’t make sense unless you see it as a movie,” he commented.
Even cinephiles who don’t usually enjoy musicals can attest to the sheer brilliance of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which made a star out of Deneuve and earned five Academy Award nominations, being a truly devastating yet painfully real, and in turn, absolutely gorgeous film, and one which has had an undeniable impact on modern cinema.
“It’s the most shattering, transporting work of art I’ve seen in any medium,” Chazelle said of his favourite movie, and you can see the parallels between the brightly-coloured backdrop of Umbrellas and La La Land, with both presenting worlds that feel bathed in dreamlike fantasy, even if the events that form their narratives are marred by the cruelty of love driven apart.
