Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

MissSimonetta This musical version of Donkey Skin (1970) is a New Wave homage to Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1948), yet it feels distinct from its predecessor in many ways. For one thing, it's much more light in tone, less austere and pensive. The musical numbers are catchy and romantic, unlike the operatic score for BatB. The pastel, Disney-like color palette is far off from Cocteau's elegant black-and-white world. The surreal touches come from the anachronisms of the fairy godmother, from her 1930s style get-up to her arrival in a helicopter near the end of the movie.Yet like the Cocteau film, Donkey Skin explores the world of the subconscious, specifically the Electra Complex. This is an element unique to Demy's film, since in the original tale, the princess is horrified by her father's marriage proposal. Here, Catherine Devenue's heroine shows a repressed desire for her father, played with great passion by Jean Marais (in a grand costume similar to his Beast in Cocteau's BatB). Her fairy godmother advises her against the incestuous union, but only because she wants the king for herself. When the princess learns of the godmother's marriage to her father at the end, she is noticeably disappointed and we get the feeling her marriage to prince charming might not be satisfactory.Donkey Skin is no masterpiece, but it is a fascinating piece of fairy tale cinema nevertheless and one of the most fun films you'll come across in the French New Wave, its melancholy undercurrent aside.

Sandcooler Talking flowers, red horses, bizarre musical numbers and a girl walking around in a donkey carcass, this is my kind of movie. The great prince may look more like a glam rocker than anything else, and the plot may not make a lick of sense, but it's still a pretty magical tale. Many of the scenes are rather surreal, and some scenes look like the entire crew just broke out of rehab, but if anything that just makes the movie more exciting. As for content, it's just weird. It's a classic love story, but it's told in such a peculiar way that for the most part I just stared blankly and pointed at the screen. Still, it's a very entertaining movie. Also comes with the most surprising helicopter appearance in movie history.

Lovekitten I just had to write a correct summary, since the one available was misleading. The movie is about a beautiful princess, which is forced to marry her father. following her fairy godmother advice, she asks her father for unreasonable presents so she could get out of this unholy marriage. first she asks for a dress the color of the sky, but he provides it to her, so she requests a dress the color of the sparkling moon, which he made for her also, and last, a dress made of the sun beams, which surprisingly he's able to provide her too. in her despair, she runs away from the palace, with her three dresses, wearing a donkey skin as disguise and settles in a far off village working as a maid. thats where the love story begins, filled with sweet songs by Cathrine's beautiful voice.

rafe-macpherson Being a university student in the 60's, in Toronto, it was a given that one saw as many foreign films as possible. The French New Wave was happening so we all trudged off to see the latest incomprehensible (to me) Godard or the new, much more accessible Truffaut or the ever bleaker Bergman or the latest jaw-dropper from Fellini and woe betide you if you dared to admit that you didn't "get" Antonioni. We knew how to pronounce the names of Japanese and Czech directors and argued the merits of Bunuel. We were into it, man. Cinema (not "the movies") was our passion. So how did "Peau d'Ane pass us by? I'd seen "The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg" of course. Who hadn't? Jacques Demy and Michel Legrande were practically house-hold names and yet no one raced off to see "Peau d'Ane". I'm sure it must have had a theatrical release, here and I dimly remember being aware of it at the time but it certainly didn't have the "Oh muh God!" critical reaction and word-of-mouth that would have turned it into the cult hit that it should have been. With no CGI and, by today's standards, the simplest of special effects, this movie is utterly magical and astonishing. I suspect that, for 1970, it was just too "French". The story is an (apparently) beloved French classic by Felix Perrault but quite unknown outside French culture. The title, "Donkey's Skin" and a slightly ick-factor plot line may have put off critics and audiences at the time but I'm now convinced that every director of the spate of fantasy movies that we currently enjoy has been heavily influenced by "Peau d'Ane".