Le Bonheur

It would be easy to dismiss this film as incredibly simple in its ambition, especially given how exhilarating Cléo from 5 to 7 is.

The film's flaccid subject matter is working class marital infidelity and it seems to condemn reckless male desire by demonstrating how tragic the consequences are if it goes unchecked.

But this is too easy a target for Varda. I want to believe that she's somehow satirizing this simplistic reproach of masculinity. I want to believe that she's complicating a sad vision of the world proposed by moralists who try to tighten their grip on other people's behavior. An ironic reading of this film, however, is implausible.

A more likely interpretation is that Varda wants to elevate the irritatingly trite content of this narrative by blessing it with cinematic splendor. This film is, if nothing else, a colorful experience.

Le bonheur

Les Plages d’Agnès

This funky, chaotic, charming bricolage often put me in mind of Synecdoche, New York. There's a lot to love in this film because Agnès Varda has led a long, extraordinary life and she shares it here well, in several media and with an overt interest in being entertaining. Gems include back story on the nouvelle vague, the story of Varda's time in LA, and the evolution of her latest creative endeavors.

I saw this film at a Varda retrospective which she herself attended. It's unsettling, even unreal, to consider that someone from the world of Cleo de 5 a 7 is alive and conversant. After Varda's remarks I lingered to ask her about my favorite shot from her 1962 film (the famous point-of-view sidewalk scene when Cleo attracts the attention of several idle men). I panicked in front of Varda and wasn't sure if I had a question or merely a compliment. She told me that the men weren't actors and that they only shot the scene twice.

If you haven't seen Cleo, take the plunge at your earliest convenience: Cleo From 5 to 7