Donkey Skin (Peau d'âne)

Jacques Demy’s ode to the classic fairytale by 17th-century author Charles Perrault (“Cinderella”) comes to life with breathtaking brilliance. Catherine Deneuve stars as a Princess whose father, the King (Jean Marais), shockingly 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, wearing the skin of her father’s prized donkey as a disguise. A visiting Prince passes by, and an unlikely romance is born.

“Demy's movie makes for an evocative globe-paperweight tableau of its place and time, and a concise demonstration of the disquietude inherent in classic fairy tales,” writes the Village Voice’s Michael Atkinson. “That the story involves the marriage-lust of a grieving king (Cocteau axiom Jean Marais) for his luscious daughter (Catherine Deneuve) is only the tale’s wacky Freudian nut; around them gallops a soft parade of costume-ball silliness, frog-spitting hags, blue-skinned servants, talking yellow roses, out-of-body rendezvous, and fastidious gownery.”