Donkey Skin (Jacques Demy, France, 1970, 90 min)
UW Cinematheque, Friday, April 25, 7pm»
Donkey Skin (Peau d’Ane) is the classic fairy-tale as told by the French New Wave filmmaker, Jacques Demy. It is the over told story of a Princess in search of a Prince, but mixed with desires of incest, unique decor, and the skin of a donkey. The incorporation of quirky musical numbers, dry humor and dazzling costumes makes the film pleasurable, but because the film’s plot barely diverges from the classic fairy-tale story the overall experience is predictable and anti-climactic.
There are strange things that happen in Donkey Skin that would never be seen in other princess tales. First of all, there is the upfront intended incest. The King of the blue kingdom, after promising his dying wife to only marry someone more beautiful than she, decides to marry his daughter. The daughter is convinced to refuse her father’s proposal by her fairy godmother’s song about why “girls shouldn’t marry their daddies” (it taints the children).
There is also a donkey that shits jewels. In attempt to keep her father from marrying her, the Princess requests for the magical donkey to be slaughtered. The Princess then takes the hideous and smelly skin and wraps it around herself as a disguise. She runs to a nearby village and she adopts the name “donkey skin”.
The musical numbers also hold unique elements different from what you’d see in other fairy-tales. They have that same flowing, upbeat melody, but there is a hint of experimental instruments and the lyrics are strange. This is especially true for the anti-incest song and the princess’s baking song.
But everything else that happens comes about as expected and is resolved too easily. The points in the plot that could be heightened with dramatic tension are presented subtlety. The Prince easily finds the Princess, the whole incest problem is shrugged off and wrapped up within seconds and even the big revealing of the Princess under the hideous donkey skin was not built up and was easily accepted without explanation. I understand that it is intended by many filmmakers to dampen the dramatic points as a contrast to Classic Hollywood, but the subtle execution of the turning points in the plot, along with them being totally predictable, leaves little to chew on. The only thing that grabs and holds attention is the strange elements mentioned earlier. The presence of these elements suggest a latent meaning underneath the simple story, but what that meaning was escaped me.
The end product becomes a see-through, simple layer with nothing visible underneath. Donkey Skin takes the fairy-tale fantasy that every person has heard and dreamed of, strips it of its dramatic appeal and sprinkles it with unexplained oddities. I liked that the film made me think of fairy-tales in this empty way, but I wish I had been more entertaining to watch.