Owen’s Oldies: ‘Donkey Skin’

By Owen Glancy Arts & Features Editor For those with keen memories, you might remember that the first Owen’s Oldies was on “Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” a French film from 1964 directed by Jacques Demy. After almost four semesters of publishing Owen’s Oldies, covering another one of Demy’s colorful masterpieces is well overdue. Unlike most of his work, “Donkey Skin” does not make the ordinary and mundane whimsical and romantic. It instead is a more traditional fairy tale forgoing the contemporary setting and the logic that comes with that setting. That shift in his focus came with the end of the French New Wave film movement of the early 1960s, a movement which Demy was a crucial part of, both in his works and in his marriage to Agnès Varda, the female progenitor of the movement. By 1970, the year of “Donkey Skin’s” release, Demy had moved past the French New Wave’s focus on tackling the contemporary France setting, but brought the lessons learned in the French New Wave with him to this film. He combines the traditional fairy tale influences with his modern filmmaking sensibilities. The tale of a beautiful princess who has to go into hiding to avoid marrying her father who is in the throes of grief after his wife passed away is very similar to something that the Brothers Grimm would have written, but it forgoes to the dark overtones and instead leans into Demy’s signature brand of technicolor whimsy. The film’s biggest departure from these Tales of Grimm-esque plots is its ending. While it might be silly to write around spoilers for a 55-year-old movie, I hesitate to so quickly give away how it ends because so much of the film’s magic is in that ending which is both predictable and completely out of left field. A major stand out aspect of the film’s elegant production design are the costumes. Early in the film, the princess, played by Demy regular Catherine Deneuve, has her father the king make her a series of increasingly elaborate dresses in order to delay her marriage to him. Every single one of these dresses is absolutely stunning, with them all being themed around the moon, the sun, and the stars. And these dresses are just the tip of the film’s costume design iceberg, with the most iconic outfit also belonging to the princess, the titular donkey skin she wears in hiding. While not a full blown musical like “Umbrellas of Cherbourg” or “Young Girls of Rochefort,” Demy still injects the film with a couple musical numbers and original songs. These songs are more reminiscent of the classic era of Disney animated musicals, once again building a fairy tale atmosphere using the audience’s familiarity with arguably the most famous film adaptations of famous fairy tales. “Donkey Skin” was among the last films Demy would release before his death in 1990, and is often the last many people watch alongside “A Room in Town” thanks to their joint inclusion in a Criterion Collection box set of Demy’s work, and that is very apparent. His mastery over color, music, framing, and the actors is at its peak in this film, shaped by his films of the French New Wave and undoubtedly by the films of his wife Agnès Varda. While “Umbrellas of Cherbourg” is the better film, it doesn’t have some of the clunkiness in the middle this film does. “Donkey Skin” and the rest of Demy’s wonderful filmography should not be overlooked in favor of his most celebrated work. If you’ve watched “Umbrellas,” whether because of Owen’s Oldies or in your own time, please give “Donkey Skin” a shot. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much you like it. You can stream “Donkey Skin” on the Criterion Channel.