Donkey Skin

DONKEY SKIN is an odd but charming combination of a number of fairy tales, blended with anachronistically modern touches and mixed up with adult themes disguised in the form of mythic euphemisms. Writer-director Jacques Demy, whose charming musical tale THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (1964) won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Festival, has a knack--much like Jean Cocteau--for melding traditional fantasy with contemporary grown-up concerns. Viewers will recognize variations on "The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg," "Cinderella," and "Little Red Riding-Hood," among other classics, all rolled into a contiguous plot line. An incest theme is woven into the plot, but on a most ...