List Price: $24.98You Pay Only: $21.99 You Save: $2.99 (12%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9781417200764
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Original recording remastered, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 1417200766
Label: KOCH LORBER FILMS
Manufacturer: KOCH LORBER FILMS
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: KOCH LORBER FILMS
Region Code: 1
Release Date: May 10, 2005
Running Time: 89 minutes
Sales Rank: 34189
Studio: KOCH LORBER FILMS
Theatrical Release Date: 1970
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Jacques Demy’s ode to the classic fairy tale by 17th Century author Charles Perrault (Cinderella) comes to life with breathtaking brilliance. Digitally restored and re-mastered under the supervision of Agnès Varda (The Gleaners and I), this epic tale overflows with dazzling color, elaborate costumes and an enchanting score by Academy Award®-winning composer Michel Legrand (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). Catherine Deneuve (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Indochine) stars as a Princess whose father, the King (Jean Marais), seeks her hand in marriage after promising his dying wife to only wed a woman more beautiful than she. Listening to her godmother, the Fairy of Lilacs (Delphine Seyrig), the frightened Princess flees to a neighboring farm and hides as a scullery maid, while wearing the skin of her father’s prized donkey as a disguise. A visiting Prince passes by, and an unlikely romance is born.
Amazon.com:
Donkey Skin reunites Catherine Deneuve with Jacques Demy and Michel Legrand, yet it's quite unlike The Umbrellas of Cherbourg or The Young Girls of Rochefort. Those 1960s musicals were set in some semblance of the modern world, but Donkey Skin, based on a fable by Charles Perrault, takes place in a fantastical fairyland, located somewhere between The Wizard of Oz and La Belle et la Bête. Jean Marais, Jean Cocteau’s Beast, is even the king of the kingdom. Alas, he's just lost his queen (Deneuve), whose dying wish is that he marry a woman more beautiful than she. Deranged by loss, he decides on his daughter (Deneuve again). She's horrified--her fairy godmother (Delphine Seyrig), as well, so she devises a plan for the princess to flee, hidden by a donkey skin. Strange by any standards, Donkey Skin is one of the more magical musicals to emerge from the 1970s. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Memories of an American Boy in France
You have to be able to give yourself to a movie without really understanding it, to appreciate the beautiful qualities of Jacques Demy's PEAU D'ANE. So much of the story doesn't make any sense to American viewers. Why, for example, does the Prince sham illness in order to get "Donkey Skin" to bake him a cake? He knows who she is, why doesn't he just go for it. Why go through the rigmarole of getting every woman in the kingdom to try on the ring? How does he know that only Catherine Deneuve would be able to wear the ring? What if he got someone else instead? (We see a cute reaction shot when a very young princess, maybe 4 or 5 years old, tries on the ring and it's way too big for her.)
Growing up in France, commercial TV played this movie every Christmas, just the way that here in the USA they were showing "It's a Wonderful Life." For us American children trapped in Paris at Christmastime, there was one great treat, a showing of "Peau D'Ane" every year to look forward to (this was in the days before DVDS and even VHS.) You'll see the special cake that Catherine Deneuve makes with her dirty twin, and you'll wonder why she makes such a flat cake for the prince--it's a visual reminder of our special Christmas cake, the "galette," round and flat, into which a shoe, a baby or other toy has been inserted. We would have a "buche de Noel" every year, always a cause for general applause. (The Princess slips a golden ring into the cake, and Prince Charming nearly chokes to death on ... Read More
Rating: - A Unique Musical Fairy Tale
Catherine Deneuve's re-teaming with director Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand is not as charming or memorable as their previous musicals (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, their best, and The Young Girls of Rochefort), but Donkey Skin is still quite a magical and certainly unique cinematic experience.
With a plot motivated by incest (with both father and daughter clearly willing, at least in this film version) and obvious phallic symbolism (Prince Charming finds his bride by trying a ring on the fingers of all the women in the kingdom), Donkey Skin is a rather bizarre fairy tale. Demy also set out to create a magical, cinematic, fairy tale world, so the film requires that you set all expectations of realism aside, in terms of the visuals and the way in which the music is "integrated" into the narrative. However, a lot of the fun comes precisely from the film's anachronisms (a fairy godmother that looks like Jean Harlow and rides a helicopter) and its visual games (Deneuve's golden looks, the red and blue-colored horses and people).
Deneuve was impossibly beautiful at this point in her career, and she fits the part of the princess perfectly. Jean Marais, in a clear nod to Jean Cocteau's masterpiece 'Beauty and the Beast' (there are a couple more nods to Cocteau in the film), also makes an ideal king. In fact, the whole cast is great, especially the actress playing the fairy godmother. The film looks great on the DVD, which is loaded with extras. The best for me were ... Read More
Rating:  - Terrible fairy tale.
The production values and plot are terrible.
I know you're supposed to suspend your disbelief when watching a fairy tale, but this takes the cake.
There are so many errors, from the mention of Alaska - which during the period wasn't even discovered, to the appearance of the helicopter at the end - what period is the story set in?
Also, the plastic brooms, and the entry to the throne room - why didn't they build a full size door?
And what about the poor horses that were coloured red and blue?
It must be some high-brow French metaphor which I don't understand.
Last, but not least, the music - eeks.
Somebody please explain this movie to me.
Rating: - hard to shake off
It does not matter how old you are. I saw it last month and I'm I'm a mature adult.
It's in French, but that did little to prevent me from seeing it three times, and the songs have since not left my head - every day, when I go into my kitchen, I hear the song Catherine sang when baking the cake for the prince.
Because it's a musical and the scenes are supplimented by music, it tends offer you additional triggers to recall scenes from the movies during the course of any given day.
Must see! A true work of art. I'm shamefully hooked, as it was probably meant for children, but I have a feeling adults will get more out of it than kids.
Rating: - Bright and colorful fairy tale musical
This is a 90-minute fairy tale, filmed in brilliant colors (lots of primary reds and blues) using famous Loire chateaux as backgrounds. Unlike Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, the entire screenplay is not sung -- this is a more conventional musical with songs and spoken dialogue. The subtitles are easy to read and accurate. The transfer to DVD is excellent. This is the sort of film one can watch more than once, if only to enjoy the rich visual detail.
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