So Jacques Demy is typically considered part of the French New Wave, and I get it: He’s a French director who was active at the time, his movies are innovative and experimental, and he’s clearly part of the scene (he was, for instance, married to Agnès Varda).

But the movies of his that I’ve seen in the past — Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Donkey Skin — didn’t feel especially New Wavey. They’re big lush romantic musicals; certainly their own thing and not like Hollywood musicals, but also not very like the more grounded realism that I associate with the New Wave.

Well, so this is his first movie, and oh okay, now I see it. It’s a black and white movie (like many New Wave movies, made on a shoestring budget) that takes place mostly on the streets and sidewalks, focusing on a disaffected young man, a cabaret dancer, and an expansive cast of people (an American sailor! a young girl and her mom!) swirling around this core. It feels like a movie made by a rebellious young man in a whole bunch of ways, and absolutely slots right into that New Wave vibe.

And yet at the same time, it’s extremely Demy. It’s suffused with the romanticism of Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and the same sense of regret and missed possibilities. (It’s actually striking to me how many of the characters in this movie have pasts that are already full of mistakes they wish they could undo — they’re in their twenties, how did they have time to amass this many regrets?)

Another way this connects to his later work is that it literally connects to his later work. There is, no shit, a Jacques Demy Cinematic Universe, with character and story connections between his movies. The male protagonist of this movie is a major character in Umbrellas. When I watched that, and he talked about a particular episode from his past, it felt like this really poignant bit of backstory; now that I’ve actually seen that episode, it’s even more poignant and adds additional emotional layers to the later movie.

Anyway, all that to the side, this is a great movie. If you were only going to see one Demy movie, I’d still recommend Umbrellas over this, as it’s just so unique; but mostly, I wouldn’t recommend seeing just one Demy movie.