THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT  1967 (Les demoiselles de Rochefort) Directed by Jacques Demy 124 minutes In French with English subtitles

French director Jacques Demy (husband of Agnès Varda) scored an international hit in 1964 with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a bittersweet candy-colored romance in which all the dialogue was set to music. Equally enchanting is the movie that reunited Demy with the star and the composer of Umbrellas - Catherine Deneuve and Michel Legrand. That film is The Young Girls of Rochefort, an effervescent cinematic concoction about two dreamy-headed demoiselles who live in a remote seaside town. Deneuve and her real-life sister, Françoise Dorléac (who died in a car accident not long after this movie was finished), play twins who fantasize about life in faraway Paris. Throw in some Hullabaloo dancers, and even men in go-go boots, and you have one damn bizarre movie. But what comes as a shock for most viewers is that, after about 40 minutes, they are really loving this crazy beast of a movie. A recent issue of film magazine Little White Lies posed the question if this was the best musical of all time, or just the best movie of all time. They concluded the later.

The musical score is outrageous, and the costumes - well, the over-the-top 60s hairstyles and vinyl boots fit right into the film's sense of gleeful fun. There is a sunny, daffy spirit to this movie that becomes positively infectious... and it's certainly a film that deserves to be better known. With Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, Michel Piccoli and even Gene Kelly (in his next to last screen appearance before he died).

This will be a gorgeously vivid high-definition screening.