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Donkey Skin | 
 enlarge | Actors: Georges Adet, Annick Berger, Romain Bouteille, Louise Chevalier, Sylvain Corthay
Studio: KOCH LORBER FILMS
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.98
Buy New: $11.96
You Save: $13.02 (52%)
New (40) Used (13) from $10.89
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 19719
Format: Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Original Recording Remastered, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 89 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: KCHDKLF3047D
ISBN: 1417200766
UPC: 741952304791
EAN: 9781417200764
ASIN: B0007VY472
Theatrical Release Date: 1970
Release Date: May 10, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Factory Sealed. Free upgrade to 1st class mail.
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| Editorial Reviews:
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
Product Description
Jacques demys classic film of a princess fleeing marriage in her fathers kingdom wearing his prize donkey skin as a disguise. Studio: Koch International Release Date: 11/13/2007 Starring: Catherine Deneuve Run time: 89 minutes Rating: Nr
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Strange but Lovely November 24, 2008
Rebecca Pierce
I'd forgotten just how strange this fairytale is. But it's also beautiful to look at, well, besides the inside of the donkey skin and the woman speaking frogs. A bit shocking and bizarre for modern French students, but worth it anyway. That's half the fun right?
 Memories of an American Boy in France November 16, 2006
Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
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 it!) In many ways Demy puts in references to our charming French Christmas traditions. We would stay up late and have a midnight dinner the French servants called, the "Reveillon," an enormous feast with chickens, geese, sausage and sometimes quail. You'd think everyone would be fat, but even Santa Claus, or as we call him, Pere Noel, although dressed in red like Prince Charming (Jacques Perrin) in tbis film, is always portrayed as thin, nearly emaciated: compare him to the enormously fat jolly man American kids call "Santa Claus."
By the way, we put out shoes by the fireplace, whereas you American children hang up stockings at the mantelpiece! Then when we open our gifts, we settle in for the annual treat of seeing Jacques Demy's masterpiece, "Peau D'Ane." Now an adult, I can see that Delphine Seyrig and Micheline Presle were still quite attractive in 1970, though to a child they seem quite elderly compared to how young Deneuve looks. We had gotten used to seeing Deneuve and Jacques Perrin together in Demy's previous film, LES DEMOISELLES DU ROCHEFORT, but here they share even more charisma and sex appeal. Their number together doing backwards somersaults and then gliding down a placid river on a painted barge, torches burning bright in daylight, is one of the best in the film.
A Unique Musical Fairy Tale March 30, 2006
Kardius (USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
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 the segment from the documentary 'The World of Jacques Demy' (in which Demy, Deneuve and other cast and crew members talk about making the film), and the charming interview with the film's producer (who was 87 at the time). The worst was a rather pompous discussion of the film by psychoanalyst, a literature professor, and a Jacques Demy scholar. That segment will be of interest to scholars, but I thought listening to their discussion took away from the charm of the film.
Be warned that Donkey Skin is an odd film, certainly not for everyone's taste. However, like Jacques Demy's other musicals with Catherine Deneuve, this is a truly distinctive piece of filmmaking and if you're willing and able to open your mind to a magical fairy tale world, then I think you'll enjoy it.
 Terrible fairy tale. November 16, 2005
S. Yip (Fort lauderdaler, FL)
2 out of 26 found this review helpful
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.
hard to shake off September 7, 2005
F. Morse (New York)
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.
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