Black Panthers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Black Panthers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 31, 2020

Note: This film is available as part of The Complete Films of Agnès Varda.

In the wake (figurative or otherwise) of Agnès Varda’s death last year at the age of 90, quite a bit has rightfully been written about this iconic force in both French and global cinema. Varda’s output includes well over fifty credits as a director (including some television entries as detailed by the IMDb), and aside from listing some of her better known triumphs, many obituaries and/or eulogies about Varda mentioned any number of other biographical data points, including her rather unique position as a woman in France’s nouvelle vague movement, her own feminism which was featured none too subtly in some of her films, and her frequently provocative experimental style. But you know what one of the things that kind of fascinates me personally most about Varda? That she was married for 28 years to Jacques Demy, from 1962 until Demy’s death in 1990. That Varda, often a purveyor of verité infused “realism”, whether that be in outright documentaries or at least ostensibly more “fictional” outings, and Demy, a director whose candy colored, dreamlike and at least relatively "Hollywoodized" musicals with Michel Legrand brought a new luster and gloss to French cinema, managed to make a marital go of it for so long is certainly testament to the maxim that “opposites attract”, even if those oppositional forces in this instance played out at least in part in terms of what kinds of films the two were often best remembered for. If Varda's long marriage to Demy is more than enough reason to celebrate her personal life, her professional life is beautifully feted in this rather astounding new set from Criterion, which aggregates an amazing 39 films (albeit some running as short as a few minutes) to provide what is arguably one of the most insightful overviews of Varda's cinematic oeuvre. Perhaps unavoidably, but also undeniably movingly, these personal and professional sides of Varda merge in at least some of the films in this set, including The Young Girls Turn 25, The World of Jacques Demy, Jacquot de Nantes, and The Beaches of Agnès.

Black Panthers may have been made in 1968, when Agnès Varda had been in California accompanying husband Jacques Demy as he attempted to make a foray into Hollywood, but as this review is being written (the summer of 2020), the documentary's message could hardly be more relevant. "Black lives matter" is virtually the entire subtext of this riveting piece, one that is built around the aftermath of the arrest of Huey P. Newton. Not only are still au courant issues like police treatment of black people featured prominently in this piece, even supposedly less "important" issues like black people being able to be proud of their own hair (with a kind of subtext that wearing an Afro can be a political statement) make it into various discussions.

It's absolutely fascinating to compare and contrast this piece with Varda's "other" California short, Uncle Yanco, because they each offer potent examples of how varied Varda's approaches could be, considering her equally variant subject matters. In Uncle Yanco, she's deliberately playful and even embraces a certain deconstructionist ethic, but in Black Panthers, she's more of a resolute observer, letting various people, including Huey Newton himself, simply expound on what they are going through. The result is a visceral gut punch which frankly may have even more impact due to current (as this review is being written) events.

Black Panthers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Black Panthers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Some prefatory text discloses that this was restored in 2013 by L'Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Ciné Tamaris, with a 2K restoration from the 16mm original color negative. Agnès Varda supervised the color grading. As befits its smaller format, this is a pretty heavily grainy feature from the get go, something that is probably most apparent in some of the outdoor material. This is another Varda color offering where things looked just slightly blue to my eyes, though that said, the palette generally looks natural and pops quite well. Clarity is generally fine, given an understanding that some of this film was shot on the fly. That said, one of the more "planned" moments, the in jail interview with Huey Newton, is a bit softer and more ragged looking than some of the rest of the presentation.

Black Panthers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Black Panthers features an LPCM Mono track in English. Prefatory text discloses that the mono track was restored from the original 16mm magnetic track. This is a bit chaotic sounding at times, especially in some of the crowd scenes where music is playing and people are all talking over each other, but both narration and the more formal interview sections sound fine.

Black Panthers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction from 2007 (1080i; 1:25) offers Varda's thoughts. In French with English subtitles.

Black Panthers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Black Panthers begins with Varda's camera panning across a huge banner which states "Black is Beautiful", and the rest of the documentary serves as support for that thesis. This is perhaps more relevant today than it was even when it first came out. Technical merits are generally solid, and Black Panthers comes Recommended.