MovieChat Forums > Les plages d'Agnès (2008) Discussion > Why shouldn't Agnes Varda have a voice?

Why shouldn't Agnes Varda have a voice?

posted 15 years ago by wayne-83
5 replies | jump to latest

I saw this movie last night (at the Harvard Film Archive) as they are having a retrospective with Agnes introducing and doing Q&A after the films. Her most recent film is a "film memoir" of all the people she met during her long life

The next day, at a screening for "Lions Love" (her 1960s film on the LA counterculture), the guy behind me complained about "the beaches of Agnes" being "too much about her" even though it is a filmed memoir!

Why is it wrong for her to have a voice? Having seen seven of her films in the theatre with an audience in the last week or so (and having seen a few others on video or DVD through Facets Multimedia), it is hard for me to not think that she is one of the handful of greatest directors of the 20th century. And it isn't just "Cleo from 5 to 7" that I am thinking of.

Making any documentary involves making many choices, picking the "sound bites" that express the documentarian's points; why should the documentary "hide" the inherent subjectivity? Her perennial interests have to do with subjectivity/objectivity, real vs subjective time, film as a "cimema essay" and so on. There

is a lot in this movie that is both important and interesting.

[–] michuk 15 years ago

Fully agree.

Agnès Varda steps back both literaly (she's walking backwards throughout the film) and in a metaphorical sense, in order to tell us the story of "those things that happened to her and that can be interesting to others".

She talks in her own special way which is funny and interesting, but also very touching, especially when it concerns her dead friends and husband: Jacques Demy.

It's a beautiful (and probably final) movie of this important director and it a truly unique experience. See it if you can!

michuk

--
http://filmaster.com - movie blogs and social recommendations

[–] chairvaincre 14 years ago

Nothing wrong with Agnes turning the camera on herself.

But for many who have seen Gleaners, the technique in Beaches just isn't as successful or inspired. It felt more cobbled together, and lacked the graceful simplicity of Gleaners.

I think, in fact, not enough was about Agnes. Too much of it was about Demy. To a point, yes, understandable, but Demy passed in 1990! It's been 20 years, that's a quarter of her life!! Where is that?? That's what I wanted to see.

[–] zurichpoet 14 years ago

I agree!
Less Demy, more Agnes, along with more about Gérard Depardieu as "Le beatnik"! Ha!

[–] IzzyTree 14 years ago

Why listen to some idiot at a film screening that was probably just dragged there by his girlfriend, LOL?

I'm enjoying this tonight on PBS. My only criticism at the moment, is that the subtitles are in white, not yellow -- and very difficult to read at times. And my French just isn't that good! LOL. Really, yellow subtitles should be, to coin a phrase, de rigeur! Otherwise, tres interessant! Love the backward walking!!!

[–] zurichpoet 14 years ago

YES!
The white subtitles are even harder to pick up in the theater where they have a certain glare to them, too; nearly impossible to read.