What a wonderful film. Agnes Varda is a master filmmaker and this autobiographical documentary seamlessly blends love, memory, death, and a menagerie of film-making notables, and even an animated orange cat into an amazing collage that beautifully reflects her life. She truly understands her medium and is therefore able to play with it, extend and manipulate it, and use it so very effectively to tell her story.
Manohla Dargis states in the nytimes, she is “perhaps the only filmmaker who has both won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and strolled around an art exhibition while costumed as a potato.” This playfulness and not taking herself so seriously is another thing I like about her. The film feels light and humorous, perfectly fitting as she describes herself, “a little old lady, pleasantly plump.”
Above all I always love experiencing the product of a master of their craft and this film is no exception.
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Since I haven’t written about it before, I would also like to take a moment to recommend one of her other films:
The Gleaners and I
This is another amazing offering from this acclaimed filmmaker. A beautiful and poignant meditation on waste and refuse in our society and the people who reject ignoring it, instead they engage it directly either for economic or philosophical reasons.