Jacquot de Nantes (1991)

Jacquot Demy is a little boy at the end of the thirties. His father owns a garage and his mother is a hairdresser. The whole family lives happily and likes to sing and to go to the movies. ... See full summary »

Director:

Agnès Varda

Writers:

Jacques Demy (memoirs), Agnès Varda

Stars:

Philippe Maron, Edouard Joubeaud, Laurent Monnier

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Philippe Maron	...	Jacquot 1
Edouard Joubeaud	...	Jacquot 2
Laurent Monnier	...	Jacquot 3
Brigitte De Villepoix	...	Marilou, la mere
Daniel Dublet	...	Raymond, le pere
Clément Delaroche	...	Yvon 1
Rody Averty	...	Yvon 2
Hélène Pors	...	Reine 1
Marie-Sidonie Benoist	...	Reine 2
Jérémie Bernard	...	Yannick 1
Cédric Michaud	...	Yannick 2
Julien Mitard	...	Rene 1
Jérémie Bader	...	Rene 2
Guillaume Navaud	...	Cousin Joel
Fanny Lebreton	...	La petite refugiee

Storyline

Jacquot Demy is a little boy at the end of the thirties. His father owns a garage and his mother is a hairdresser. The whole family lives happily and likes to sing and to go to the movies. Jacquot is fascinated by every kind of show (theatre, cinema, puppets). He buys a camera to shoot his first amateur film... An evocation of French cineast Jacques Demy's childhood and vocation for the cinema and the musicals.

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Plot Keywords:

cinema | puppet | boy | garage | childhood | 

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Genres:

Biography | Drama

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

25 June 1993 (USA)

Also Known As:

Jacquot

Filming Locations:

Allée des Tanneurs, Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France

Box Office

Gross USA:

$149,200

Company Credits

Production Co:

Canal+,Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC),Ciné Tamaris

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Black and White Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jacques Demy actually wanted to direct the film himself but was too ill to do so. Agnès Varda to make it which she rushed to do before his death.

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Connections

Features The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)

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Soundtracks

Les Fraises et les Framboises

User Reviews

Demy's will in images

In my ongoing project to know Varda I figured few films would be as personally poignant as this one, a dear goodbye to her filmmaker husband Demy, then in his last days. It would be about his childhood in occupied France, before the two met, but I was keen to see what images she would furnish around this boy who would grow up to be the man she loved and was going to be parted from now forever very soon.

But of course it has to count for something, that faced with the opportunity to make one last film, Demy chose one simply on his childhood in place of a more encompassing reflection, that he leaves out all that life that a man would reflect back upon, and husband, father, struggling filmmaker. It must have been not always a happy marriage, as also different films by both suggest, but that's every marriage.

Moreover it says this about him, that as the last glimpse of himself that he leaves behind is that of a boy tinkering with moving illusions in an attic. It shows the Demy who liked nothing better than to tinker with color and artifice in his later work, fans will clearly see how the fascination started, this is definitely one for them. How it's the surrounding world, having to hide the weapons of French soldiers before German tanks rolled in, that inspires invention, staging, imagination. We see that it's his father's garage where Cherbourg takes place in after all.

But if we keep probing honestly, we will also come to the realization that if we didn't know from elsewhere that Demy was in his last days, we wouldn't really know it from the film. The facts of mortality are left out, this is a story of beginnings. So when it ends with the somewhat flippant mention that he would go on to be married, have kids, and that is that, it might also be a way of saying that some things are left unsaid. I still find that what he chooses to recall is a simple nostalgia and what he doesn't has even more value, that being consciousness of a whole life.

Varda films from a distance, this is not her story, she's here to type it all down. But she does say her own goodbye in the most heartfelt way as the camera parts from him on a shore, has to. She would make another film on Demy after he was gone, I'm setting my eyes on that.