Like "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" a wholly sung opera and like "Lola" wholly set in Jacques Demy's native city of Nantes, even using several shots of that palatial shopping arcade again.
For much of the time, however, the camera gives us a proletarian Nantes of graffiti-scarred back alleys, barricaded works whose employees are out on strike and squares full of detritus. No prettily painted streets emptied of people and cars, but a working town full of tension, shot in sombre tones often tinged with blue. Twice we see riot cops who after breaking into fierce song break up demonstrations with batons and gas, leaving victims behind. One fatality is the chief protagonist, the shipyard fitter and toolmaker François (Richard Berry) whose room gives the film its title.
On the street where this occurs we see at the top the cathedral and at the foot the prefecture. One a symbol of ebbing church power, for this drama shows few signs of Catholic faith or morals, and the other standing for state power, incarnated in the lines of identical armoured police decanted from identical vans with menacing sirens.
As well as the brooding corporate violence of police and unionists, individuals flare into moments of savagery. Edmond (Michel Piccoli), the erratic owner of the TV shop, after applying a hot soldering iron to his wayward wife Édith (Dominique Sanda), threatens first his innocent mother-in-law Madame Langlois (Danièle Darrieux) and then his wife with a razor, before finally and fatally using it on himself. The unbalanced wife draws a pistol on him and later uses it on herself. Madame Langlois, François' landlady, favours the strikers but not violence and instead stays sozzled throughout.
A dark tale, with only occasional flashes of love to penetrate the blackness. Violette (Fabienne Guyon), the teenage shopgirl François makes pregnant and abandons, has the unconditional love of her mother (Anna Gaylor), while François has unquestioning support from his loyal workmate (Jean-François Stévenin). As for the fierce love that suddenly erupts between François and Édith after she picks him up in the street by opening her coat, this seems more operatic than real, a grand passion unlikely to survive the cold light of many dawns.
Top acting honours go to the two leading ladies. As Madame Langlois, the widow of a colonel and daughter of a baron who never leaves her elegant flat, Danièle Darrieux exhibits immense presence in the face of many challenges but is never far from her bottle of chilled white wine and sometimes, so silly of me, knocking over a footstool. Outperforming her, and at the peak of her womanly beauty, Dominique Sanda plays her daughter Édith as an over-the-top character who for almost all of the film is wearing either a fur coat with nothing under it or just nothing. As mother-daughter relationships go, this one may amuse at times but underneath carries many layers of pain. Michel Piccoli is even further over the top as Édith's husband, voluntarily immured in his shop and unable to satisfy the rampant sexuality of his wife, who has turned to part-time prostitution for kicks.
The singing, a continuous récitative without arias that is mostly dubbed, is made deliberately unshowy, as are the unsustained melodies by Michel Colombier and the unpoetic lyrics by Demy himself. All done with care to keep music and words unobtrusive, so that they complement the images rather than overpower them, fit the place and theme, illuminate the feelings of the characters and move the plot along.
Set in the year 1955, when Demy was in his early twenties, the look and the artefacts of the time seem perfectly chosen. Even the taunting chant of the strikers "police, milice" is redolent of the era, comparing the republic's admittedly tough cops to the hated fascist paramilitaries of the Vichy régime abolished only eleven years earlier.
Everybody who has loved "Lola", "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" or "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" should see this film immediately. Everybody else should be aware that it is opera sung to lyrics where, as soon as you adapt to the magical way of marrying song and image to convey emotions and enrich the narrative, you will be hooked. Underneath the sometimes gritty surface is the skeleton of a fairy tale, the sort of story Demy loved which speaks to something deep in humans.
For much of the time, however, the camera gives us a proletarian Nantes of graffiti-scarred back alleys, barricaded works whose employees are out on strike and squares full of detritus. No prettily painted streets emptied of people and cars, but a working town full of tension, shot in sombre tones often tinged with blue. Twice we see riot cops who after breaking into fierce song break up demonstrations with batons and gas, leaving victims behind. One fatality is the chief protagonist, the shipyard fitter and toolmaker François (Richard Berry) whose room gives the film its title.
On the street where this occurs we see at the top the cathedral and at the foot the prefecture. One a symbol of ebbing church power, for this drama shows few signs of Catholic faith or morals, and the other standing for state power, incarnated in the lines of identical armoured police decanted from identical vans with menacing sirens.
As well as the brooding corporate violence of police and unionists, individuals flare into moments of savagery. Edmond (Michel Piccoli), the erratic owner of the TV shop, after applying a hot soldering iron to his wayward wife Édith (Dominique Sanda), threatens first his innocent mother-in-law Madame Langlois (Danièle Darrieux) and then his wife with a razor, before finally and fatally using it on himself. The unbalanced wife draws a pistol on him and later uses it on herself. Madame Langlois, François' landlady, favours the strikers but not violence and instead stays sozzled throughout.
A dark tale, with only occasional flashes of love to penetrate the blackness. Violette (Fabienne Guyon), the teenage shopgirl François makes pregnant and abandons, has the unconditional love of her mother (Anna Gaylor), while François has unquestioning support from his loyal workmate (Jean-François Stévenin). As for the fierce love that suddenly erupts between François and Édith after she picks him up in the street by opening her coat, this seems more operatic than real, a grand passion unlikely to survive the cold light of many dawns.
Top acting honours go to the two leading ladies. As Madame Langlois, the widow of a colonel and daughter of a baron who never leaves her elegant flat, Danièle Darrieux exhibits immense presence in the face of many challenges but is never far from her bottle of chilled white wine and sometimes, so silly of me, knocking over a footstool. Outperforming her, and at the peak of her womanly beauty, Dominique Sanda plays her daughter Édith as an over-the-top character who for almost all of the film is wearing either a fur coat with nothing under it or just nothing. As mother-daughter relationships go, this one may amuse at times but underneath carries many layers of pain. Michel Piccoli is even further over the top as Édith's husband, voluntarily immured in his shop and unable to satisfy the rampant sexuality of his wife, who has turned to part-time prostitution for kicks.
The singing, a continuous récitative without arias that is mostly dubbed, is made deliberately unshowy, as are the unsustained melodies by Michel Colombier and the unpoetic lyrics by Demy himself. All done with care to keep music and words unobtrusive, so that they complement the images rather than overpower them, fit the place and theme, illuminate the feelings of the characters and move the plot along.
Set in the year 1955, when Demy was in his early twenties, the look and the artefacts of the time seem perfectly chosen. Even the taunting chant of the strikers "police, milice" is redolent of the era, comparing the republic's admittedly tough cops to the hated fascist paramilitaries of the Vichy régime abolished only eleven years earlier.
Everybody who has loved "Lola", "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" or "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" should see this film immediately. Everybody else should be aware that it is opera sung to lyrics where, as soon as you adapt to the magical way of marrying song and image to convey emotions and enrich the narrative, you will be hooked. Underneath the sometimes gritty surface is the skeleton of a fairy tale, the sort of story Demy loved which speaks to something deep in humans.