Name: Agnès de ci de là Varda
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2011-12-19
Rating: 7.9
Cast: Agnès Varda, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Anouk Aimée

Just a delightful series from Agnès Varda, a celebration of art and culture, free-flowing over each of its five episodes. Seeing the things which catch her eye, getting a taste of the circles she moves in, and hearing her comment, ever curious and playful, was like a balm to me. If you're not interested in a particular segment, never fear, she flits around quickly, likely a butterfly. A lot of it is modern art, some of which Varda herself creates, so art lovers will definitely want to check this out, but sometimes it's just something which has caught her eye, like a group of tree trimmers in Southern California, or netmakers for fishing boats in Sète, France, or a woman with the best mole recipe in Mexico City.

To give you an idea for how it flows, in episode two Varda visits Brazil and sees the fabulous Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum, architected by Oscar Niemayer to follow the contour of Sugarloaf Mountain. She comes across artwork fashioned as chairs of sorts, and riffs on other chairs from her life, in her photographs, or other art. In the same episode, she breezes through Belgium for an exhibit at the Magritte Museum, then to Stockholm to talk to people about Ingmar Bergman's possessions being recently auctioned off, then Venice for a film festival, and lastly Avignon for an exhibition of the artwork of Miquel Barceló, including a performance piece with clay called Paso Doble. There are too many other places to list from the other episodes, but some favorites of mine were the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (where we also see Sokurov and cutaways to his film Russian Ark), Simon Rodia's towers in Watts, and Frida Kahlo's house in Mexico City.

Aside from the variety of art Varda explores, we get her level of access to the artists themselves, who talk about their work in informal ways, without ever feeling heavy. A great example of that is in episode three where we get Christian Boltanski discussing his fantastic piece Personnes, his partner Annette Messager discussing her work including The Men I Love, The Men I Don't Love, and the two of them talking about their relationship on Varda's patio, over wine and small bites. At one point Varda's mind wanders to a piece about the ephemerality of children in a museum in Malakoff, and we get a glimpse of it. Another example is in episode four, when she visits Pierre Soulages and he talks about his work in black, which deepened my understanding of how to appreciate what he was doing. Etc.

Varda is such a pure soul, radiating warmth and never making a critical comment. She's unafraid to ask a Swedish reporter about her baldness and talk to her about it with grace, or wear a potato outfit to a film festival. She shows herself posing in front of a group of men in the corner of a large painting by Jacopo Bellini in the Accademia Museum in Venice, where her profile humorously fits right in. She comes across a man (Marcel Jouet) who was in her first film, La Pointe Courte, and doesn't mind showing how he had to remind her of who he was, chiding her while showing her old photos. And only she can get away with asking her assistant Elodie to pose nude in the bathtub of the hotel room in Mexico City because they've discovered she's been mistakenly given the bridal bath suite.

While lots of other artists are featured, the series feels deeply personal to Varda. We get references to her films and her photography. She has a strong interest in how still images can play with cinema, and she references a brilliant dancing sequence from her Salut les Cubains (1963) as well as a recreation of what may have taken place before and after a random photo. She sees a painting of the Annunciation and then riffs on the interest in the subject she has, like her mother did, showing many renditions in artwork over time. We go along with her to a 50th anniversary showing of Jacques Demy's Lola, were we see Anouk Aimée looking fabulous (and at 79!). Many artists are either already friends or quickly disarmed by her, so we see things like Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira at 102(!) carrying on an imaginary fencing match with destiny, then doing a Charlie Chaplin impersonation. "We're alone when we create, aren't we?" she asks him. "No, we're not alone," he says, "the angel of creation is with us." Indeed.

French-language cinema, whether in France, Québec, or other Francophone regions, explores cultural identity, social change, and the tension between the individual and society. French cinema is not only celebrated for its intellectual experimentation and auteur traditions, but also its success in mainstream comedy, romance, and commercial entertainment. In Québec, films often focus on questions of language, belonging, and community within a distinct cultural landscape.

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