PEAU D'ANE

France, 1970, 100 minutes, Colour.
Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, Jacques Perrin, Micheline Presle, Delphine Seyrig, Jean Servais.
Directed by Jacques Demy.

Peau D'Ane marks Jacques Demy's return to France after his American visit to make Model Shop, his sequel to Lola of 1960. Previously he had made the lightly confected musicals The Umbrellas ok Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort. Catherine Deneuve had featured in both these musicals. The music was by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve is now the heroine of his fairy tale taken from the works of Charles Perrault, the author also of Beauty and the Beast. Michel Legrand also contributes a very Gallic score and range of recitative songs.

Demy's fairy tale is beautiful to look at, the emphasis is on stylised beauty in dress and decor. The film captures the atmosphere of the fairy story but presents it more for adults than for children. He also has a tongue-in-cheek reference to modern situations and brings in humorously a helicopter at the end. Nevertheless the film captures Perrault's fairy tale. Catherine Deneuve is beautiful as a fairy princess and Jacques Perrin is the prince. Delphine Seyrig is delightfully eccentric as the fairy godmother. Demy was then to go on to make his version of The Pied Piper - a fairy story with the same kind of treatment except that it veered towards the ugly and the pessimistic as well as a critique of life in the Middle Ages, akin to Bergman's mediaeval parables.

1. The value of filming a fairy tale? For what audience? Children, adults, the French, universal audience?

2. The fairy stories of Perrault, his French style, French background from postmediaeval period? Their appeal, allegory value, fairy story ingredients? How particularly French?

3. The fairy story - as attractive, appealing? A fairytale treatment? The appeal of the basic ingredients of the fairy story with kingdoms, kings and queens, jewels and wealth, sadness, near tragedy, happy endings? The characters, situations and crises? The reward? The background of a magic atmosphere and magic assistance of the characters? The transformation of the real? Magic and wish-fulfilment? How well were these used in the film?

4. The director's irony? The modern touches and the modern references, especially with the helicopter at the end? The use of Cocteau and his poems? The laughter, the ironic perspective, fairy tale and yet highlighting the aspect of the fairy world? The references to magic, the assistance of the fairies? and their busyness at particular seasons?

5. The contribution of the colour, the sumptuous decor and costumes especially the princess's dresses? The Red kingdom, the Blue Kingdom? The atmosphere of pageantry especially at the various courts and at the end? Castles and their rooms, the ordinary village with the farm work and the dirt, the countryside? The constant reliance on colouration to convey atmosphere, meaning, symbolic tones of the colour?

6. The contribution of the score, the Michel Legrand music and recitative songs, their situation throughout the film, revelation of character, themes interaction?

7. Our introduction to the fairy story through the book and the ending with the commentary about the appeal of fairy stories and the closing of the book? In the meantime an entry into a fairytale world, the kingdoms, the worlds of kings and queens and councils, marriages and heirs? The importance of law, morality? The whole background of the question of incest and its prominence? The resolution of the problem by happy marriages?

8. The picture of the king and his happiness in his kingdom, the donkey and the providing of jewels and wealth? and the ironic way in which he provided them? The king and the queen and their happiness but her death? Her death scene and the injunction about his marrying someone more beautiful than she? The fairytale daughter with her beauty? The advice of the council for the remarriage, the comedy with the ugly princesses and their pictures? The irony of his daughter being the most beautiful and the king having banished her from his sight? His watching his daughter and her playing in the courtyard and her song? His courting of her and her fear? Their gradual falling in love? The stratagem of the dresses and their beauty, the humour of the group making them and presenting them? The final irony with the killing of the donkey and skinning him and the king's willingness to do this and yet he does lose his daughter?

9. The introduction of the godmother with her knowing and flibbertigibbet kinds of ways? her vanity, her dresses, her wand, her distracted way of speaking? her advice about the dresses and its not always working, about the donkey's skin? Her Indication of love for the king? Her references to modern situations? Her bringing in the helicopter at the end for a happy ending for all, including herself?

10. The significance of the donkey and his place of honour amongst the horses in the stables, the coins and the jewels? His being the victim of the king? The presentation of the skin to the princess? her hiding in it, the visual impact of Catherine Deneuve walking around with a donkey skin on her? The introduction of the Cinderella aspects of the fairy tale?

11. The princess at the village, the ugly woman with the toads coming from her mouth, the people mocking her, the songs of mockery? The princess and her hovel in the woods and yet the magic of bringing all her kingdom with her? Her enjoying her disguise and her flight from the kingdom?

12. The build-up to the visit of the prince, the Red Kingdom, the entertainment for him? His wandering and his talking with the rose? His discovering Donkey's Skin? His falling in love with her and his return? His languishing on his return, his contrived illness, the mission for the cake and his eating it and reviving, the discovery of the ring?

13. The portrait of his parents as King and Queen, their ruling of their kingdom, love for their son, the holding of the dance and the pageant of the dance of the cats and the birds? Their fuss and agreement for the trial for the ring?

14. The build-up to the test for the ring with the song and all the women trying to get their fingers ready, the quack and his potion, for the fingers? The build-up to the arrival of all the women, their being put in rank, the humour of the tests and the various types?

15. The happy ending, the revelation of Donkey's Skin as the princess? The transformation to the marriage ceremony? The helicopter arrival and the pageantry?

16. Fairytale themes of the wise ruling of kingdoms, the nature of true kings and queens, true love, true morality, the quest, a world of 'happy ever after' for the couple lived a hundred years.