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Do you believe it to just be a coincidence that France’s interest in Saharan oil — in order to break out of its dependence on foreign, mainly American, based oil companies — was occuring at the same time? Is it “nothing but a formal prerequisite” that Guy’s new gas station opens in 1963, the year Algeria gained independence, with it’s brand Esso being owned by Standard Oil in America?

Does Cherbourg “struggle to overcome it own self-indulgence” when the film starts on cobbled streets and endless shops selling local commodities, only to end in a city of class complacent citizens who are buying globally traded commercial products and gasoline? Is it the film really primarily prepccupied with “indulging our senses with an overwhelming display of music and color”, when the titular umbrellas have vanished by the end because Genevieve’s mother fails to maintain her life as a local umbrella shopkeeper, despite living in one of the most rainy towns in the country?

“As an exercise in visual grandeur […] The story itself, a poignant romance concerning a lively clerk and an auto repairman sent to combat in Algiers, is engaging but nothing more than a formal prerequisite for indulging our senses with an overwhelming display of music and color. [… That struggles] to overcome [its] own self-indulgence.

That’s an off-base, and honestly disrespectful take on Cherbourg.

The Algerian war’s role in the saga of Genevieve & Guy is integral to the conceit of Cherbourg‘s decadent mise-en-scene.

The number of French films made during the time that invoked the conflict in Algeria, even in passing or indirectly, can be counted on one handc and Demy is responsible for one of the best. Cherbourg‘s observations on daily French life’s detachment from the conflict due to an overwhelming self-concerned pursuit of happiness (i.e., class status).

Demy uses Cherbourg to exaggerate traditions of French life and culture at that time: casual physical intimacy shared between passing strangers, a hyper-romantic view of passions; everything is sunshine and rainbows (conceptually and literally in the film). It was a time of a subconscious, collective middle-class nationalism. How quickly the war is cast out of Genevieve’s conscious (and thus, the French public’s), even when it causes separtion from her deep romantic interest. The French government’s absolute refusal to call the Algerian conflict a “war” in public and press statements at the time is mirrored by Guy only referring to it is as: “what’s happening in Algeria.”

Genevieve’s freedom being the object of a tug-of-war between her mother (who wants her to marry into upperclass as a dependent housewife) and life with Guy (independence) — where her mother eventually stops making civil suggestions and gets more aggressive with threats and demeaning language — mirror’s the political actions of France towards Algeria at the time.

Then you have the profoundly strong ties between Guy’s character and oil/gasoline, which becomes a symbol for the two’s love. (Genevieve’s repeated adorations for Guy smelling of gasoline; Guy being introduced alongside oil before we even see him and Genevieve together; Guy’s dream of opening a gas station.)