J'en ai Rêvé

October 26, 2022 6:42 PM

Danielle Licari – "Once Upon a Dream" (French), from Sleeping Beauty (SLYT).

I just got a bit transported by the unexpected beauty of this song in French. Wanted to share.

posted by MollyRealized (8 comments total)

This is from Sleeping Beauty, not Cinderella?
posted by lysimache at 7:02 PM on October 26, 2022

Don't you mean merde? ;-)

Thanks for the post! I like how loose the translation is - "Refusons tous deux que nos lendemains soient mornes et gris" (let's both refuse to let our tomorrows be dreary and gray) was a nice surprise (the original is "And I know it's true, that visions are seldom what they seem").
posted by trig at 8:49 PM on October 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

I thought this was great. If this is where we're recommending fairy tale songs in French, I'll suggest "Le Cake d'amour" from Peau d'âne (1970). The topic is much stranger, but "Conseils de la Fée des Lilas" is also great. And I unironically like "Libérée, délivrée" from La Reine des neiges (2013).

Or more generally, these fairy tale / folklore movies not in English are also good--they're not musicals, but I remember some nice moments involving music: Uproar in Heaven (1964; i.e. early chapters of Journey to the West); plus the amazing run of Czech fairy tale films from the 70s--Three Wishes for Cinderella (1973; a Christmas classic), The Little Mermaid (1976; wonderful but pretty melancholy), Beauty and the Beast (1978; featuring a crow-person Beast); and How Princesses Wake (1978; i.e. Sleeping Beauty, but a mild comedy).
posted by Wobbuffet at 8:50 PM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Corrected the details in the post.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (staff) at 11:00 PM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

This is very beautiful - but the French are famously wary of the over-sweetness of Disney scenes. So - maybe a reminder that the earliest inspiration for "The Sleeping Beauty" was the French Perceforest from back in 1340: there is a section of this where a German princess, Zellandine, falls in love with a Scottish knight called Troylus. One days she falls into a deep sleep. The prince goes to find her sleeping in a high tower - and, it is implied, rapes her - she gives birth to a child nine months later and the child wakes her up when it suckles on her finger (she fell asleep because of curse from goddess). Eventually Zellandine and Troylus meet up and marry - but Zellandine mourns her rape even as she loves her husband. The kid, Benuic, is then stolen by a half woman/half bird and goes on to become a famous knight and eventual ancestor of Arthurian big-wig, Lancelot. There is some cannibalism too!. See "Fairytales with Jen" for a summary.

Anyway - I suspect that version might be a little dark for Disney.
posted by rongorongo at 2:35 AM on October 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

Jen's analysis above adds a couple of interesting details about the Disney version: Aurora is the main character in a Disney film with the second fewest lines (after Dumbo, who does not speak) - she has 18 lines and none of them are delivered after she is woken up to live happily ever after - so she absolutely deserves a line as good as ""Refusons tous deux que nos lendemains soient mornes et gris". Also Prince Philip was named after Prince Philip - seemed like a good idea at the time.
posted by rongorongo at 2:59 AM on October 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

Lovely! Thanks for sharing that.

On a much less ethereal note, I enjoyed this translation of Prince Ali into a variety of languages.
posted by yankeefog at 6:00 AM on October 27, 2022

...which, come to think about it, I learned about from this excellent Metafilter post.
posted by yankeefog at 6:01 AM on October 27, 2022