Tag Archives: Agnès Varda

Portraits of the people that occupy the small shops of the Rue Daguerre, Paris, where the filmmaker lived.

Actress and recording star Jane Birkin and filmmaker Agnes Varda shared an interest in feminism.

An intimate, picaresque inquiry into French life as lived by the country’s poor and its provident, as well as by the film’s own director, Agnes Varda.

Jacquot Demy is a little boy at the end of the thirties. His father owns a garage and his mother is a hairdresser.

Mary-Jane asks, “Do all women fall in love with a boy, or just those without sons?” She’s divorced with two daughters, Lucy and Loulou. Lucy has a party where Mary-Jane notices Julien, 14, small and brassy, but she sees a sensitive side. She contrives to spend time with him and lets him know she’s available to him. He’s on the cusp between child and man, alternating between playing a video game, Kung Fu Master, where he tries to rescue Sylvie, and joining friends in bluff talk about sexual exploits. As Lucy realizes what is happening, she’s repulsed, but Mary-Jane, encouraged by her own mother, carries on. Is it love or jealousy of lost youth? Is there any way this can end well?

There are two parts to this film: sequences of life in the fishing village of La Pointe Courte (a government inspector’s visit, the death of a child) alternate with others following a couple – He is from La Pointe Courte, she is Parisian – coming to terms with their changing relationship.

Francois is a young carpenter married with Therese. They have two little children. All goes well, life is beautiful, the sun shines and the birds sing. One day, Francois meets Emilie, they fall in love and become lovers. He still loves his wife and wants to share his new greater happiness with her.

At nearly 80, Agnès Varda explores her memory – growing up in Belgium, living in Sète, Paris, and Noirmoutier, discovering photography, making a film, being part of the New Wave, raising children with Jacques Demy, losing him, and growing old. She explores her memory using photographs, film clips, home movies, contemporary interviews, and set pieces she designs to capture a feeling, a time, or a frame. Shining through each scene are her impish charm, inventiveness, and natural empathy. How do people grow old, how does loss stay with them, can they remain creative, and what do they remember? Memory, she says, is like a swarm of confused flies. She envisions hers for us.