Jacques Demy was certainly a frivolous film-maker but what's wrong with frivolity in the name of art? "Peau D'ane" was his very literal fairy-tale made in homage to Cocteau's "La Belle et Le Bete" down to the casting of Jean Marais among a litany of famous French actors and while it was never going to be in the Cocteau class it certainly looks like a highly attractive entertainment and features a luminous Catherine Deneuve in the central role of a princess who must flee her home when she is forced to marry her own father, the king, (don't ask!).
Naturally, this being a Jacques Demy film every tiny detail of its production design is close to perfect and the cast, that also includes Delphine Seyrig, Jacques Perrin and Micheline Presle throw themselves into the confection with abandon and yet it's all a little too twee to be considered among Demy's better works. It might appeal to little French girls and bigger French boys with a crush on the gorgeous Deneuve but Demy aficionados will be disappointed. Oh, and the songs are pretty bad, too.
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