Donkey Skin
Donkey Skin • 1h 30m
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1970 • France
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, Delphine Seyrig
In this lovingly crafted, wildly eccentric adaptation of a classic French fairy tale, Jacques Demy casts Catherine Deneuve as a princess who must go into hiding as a scullery maid in order to fend off an unwanted marriage proposal—from her own father, the king (Jean Marais). A topsy-turvy riches-to-rags fable with songs by Michel Legrand, DONKEY SKIN creates a tactile fantasy world that’s perched on the border between the earnest and the satiric, and features Delphine Seyrig in a delicious supporting role as a fashionable fairy godmother.
Up Next in Donkey Skin
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“Pour le cinéma”: On the Set of DONKE...
Director Jacques Demy and actors Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, and Jacques Perrin are interviewed on the set of DONKEY SKIN in this segment from a 1970 episode of the French television program “Pour le cinéma.”
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DONKEY SKIN Illustrated
This short program from 2008 presents images from several illustrated editions of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale “Peau d’âne,” including those from the first printing in 1695.
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DONKEY SKIN and the Thinkers
In this 2008 discussion, film critic Camille Taboulay, psychoanalysts Lucille Durrmeyer and Jean-Claude Polack, and seventeenth-century literature specialist Liliane Picciola talk about DONKEY SKIN’s themes of incest, love, and childhood fantasy.