Part of a group of French filmmakers determined to innovate cinema, Belgian-born Agnès Varda helped establish the French New Wave before it properly began with her debut film La Pointe Courte. Despite the claim that prior to making it she’d only ever seen one movie – Citizen Kane – she established herself immediately as an essential talent. It’s a talent she continued to build upon through a 60-plus year career, becoming “One of the Gods,” as Martin Scorsese put it. Along the way, she married fellow director Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort), called Jean-Luc Godard a “dirty rat”, and was one of only four people in attendance at her friend Jim Morrison’s funeral at Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Agnès’ career is vast, spanning almost 50 films, including shorts, documentaries, and narrative features – many of her films blurring the lines between fiction and documentary. Her subjects are incredibly diverse, and she experiments with form, genre and filmmaking technique. The common thread through all of her work, though? An unyielding curiosity and love for her subjects, as well as a clear social conscience. She was a filmmaker driven by a passion, after all, and an admiration of the world she lived in.
Here’s your guide to the cinema of Agnès Varda.
The entry point is… Faces Places (2017)
While many filmmakers stay behind the camera, Agnès doubles as the subject of many of her movies, and Faces Places is the perfect way to get to know one of cinema’s great minds, and get excited to explore the rest of her remarkable career. The 2017 documentary (which earned Agnès her first and only Oscar nomination) is a partnership between Agnès and street artist/photographer JR. Inspired by each other’s work, the pair travel around rural communities in France, creating portraits of the people they come across and displaying them on buildings. The effect is intoxicating: Faces Places is brimming with Agnès’ trademark adoration for her subjects, combining aspects of the road movie and buddy comedy to make one of the most delightful, if slightly bittersweet documentaries. Faces Places so beautifully captures Agnès’ endless curiosity and thirst for knowledge; while she was in her late 80s making the film, it’s clear that she was still at the peak of her powers.
Necessary Viewing… One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977)
Agnès’s feminist musical One Sings, The Other Doesn’t, follows two women who are, on the surface, polar opposites. Pomme (Valérie Mairesse) is a city girl – at 17, she wants to leave school and pursue her dreams of singing. Suzanne (Thérèse Liotard), 22, is accustomed to the countryside. She has two children and is pregnant with a third, though she cannot afford to support another child. Pomme boldly helps Suzanne secure an abortion, and their friendship grows, but tragedy separates them for a decade. When they reunite, they lead entirely different lives but agree to keep in touch via postcard. One Sings, the Other Doesn’t is a dazzling look at women’s liberation through the eyes of Pomme and Suzanne, arguing both for motherhood and for abortion rights. This is one of the great films about friendship, and specifically female friendship – a heartwarming exploration of how two very different women possess an unshakable bond. The songs (written by Agnès) are charming, and the cinematography is spellbinding.
The one everyone’s seen is… Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Released at the dawn of the French New Wave, Cléo from 5 to 7 feels breathtakingly modern, even 60 years later. Much of the staples of the movement are present – jump cuts, playing with diegetic sound, long takes – but it is also deeply introspective and feminist, challenging our perceptions of the male gaze. Cléo (Corrine Marchand) is a singer with considerable vanity, “As long as I’m beautiful, I’m alive,” she tells herself. Though she has an undeniable beauty, this is not a woman who seems happy about it, trapped in the confines of her appearance. But her life is called into question when she receives a concerning prognosis from a tarot card reader, and the film’s title refers to the two hours she spends waiting for a biopsy result. This is a sly, hypnotic film that grapples with human connections, love and pride, all while contemplating death. We could watch Cléo roam the streets of Paris forever.
The underappreciated gem is… Jacquot of Nantes (1991)
One of cinema’s great romances, filmmakers Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy were married for nearly 30 years, separated only by Jacques passing in 1990. A celebration of her husband’s life, Agnès made Jacquot of Nantes, a biopic exploring young Jacquot’s fascination with theatre, movies and puppetry that spawned his eventual journey to become a great filmmaker. Jacquot de Nantes masterfully shifts perspectives at will, moving from colour to black and white, even weaving in moments from Jacques own films and footage of the older Jacques reflecting back on his childhood. This is cinema’s ultimate love letter, not only to Jacques but to dreamers everywhere.
The deep cut is… Along the Coast (1958)
Made for the French Tourism Board, Agnès wrote and directed the vibrant and very funny short Along the Coast about the French Riviera. Struck by the exaggerated colours and tourists of the region, she gently pokes fun at the excess of the Riviera, while celebrating its striking allure. Agnès always approached her films with remarkable warmth and compassion, and even with her tongue firmly in cheek, you can feel her admiration through the warmth of her lens. Agnès made 22 short films, but Along the Coast is both one of her earliest and also one of her best. It’s sumptuously shot, making the most of the vivid colours that Agnès found so intriguing. It’s the perfect alternative if you can’t afford a holiday – in less than 30 minutes, Agnès can make you feel like you’ve been soaking in the sun for days.