About the film

Directed by Jacques Demy, Donkey Skin is a film released in 1970 and it tells the story of a someowhat unknown French fairytale. The original story was first published in 1695, written by Charles Perrault. The film stars Catherine Deneuve, Jacques Perrin (CINEMA PARADISO!), and Jean Marais. It is somewhat of a bizarre story, and I understand why Disney never picked it up as a project.

Synopsis

A king and queen live happily with their only daughter in a beautiful castle. This ultra rich king gets his treasures from a donkey who poops gold (I know lol). Everything is perfect until the queen gets sick and dies. But before she dies, she asks him to promise her that he can only remarry a woman who is as beautiful and as smart as herself. WEIRDLY, the king decides that this woman is his own daughter (she looks like the queen duh!) Crazy crazy...would he not find insane to marry his own daughter???

But the princess finds that absolutely abhorrent, meets with her fairy godmother. She explains the situation and flees the kingdom. But before she leaves, the GOLD DONKEY is killed and skinned. The princess uses the donkey skin (hint hint) to run away unnoticed.

She is then nicknamed Donkeyskin, lives in a cute little cottage in the woods where she bakes cakes and is an overall pretty princess with pretty dresses. Of course, a prince sees her in the cottage and immediately fall in love with her. He is so in love that he makes Donkeyskin bake a cake for him. When he gets the cake, he realizes that a ring fell in the mix, and he decides that the woman whose finger fits the ring.

In classic fairytale fashion, all woman in the kingdom wait in line to test and see if the ring will fit their fingers. But of course, only Donkeyskin's finger fits! They of course, marry and on the wedding day, the king and the fairy declare that they will marry.

Thoughts

I think I first watched this film at 19 out of curiosity because I saw a beautiful gif someone made on tumblr. I was captivated by the colors and the costumes. Later on, I found out this was a technicolor film and I was OBSSESSED with the artifical sparkles they added throughout the movie. It was my first ever Jacques Demy film, and I only got to watch Umbrellas of Cherbourg in 2025 (a very depressing movie if I say so myself).

Media

The classic cake song!

Gallery