Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Documenteur 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.

Documenteur has connections both hidden and overt to Mur Murs (including some brief shared footage), but this is once again an almost intentionally cheeky 180 degree turn for Varda in a number of ways. Mur Murs is a pretty unadorned, straight ahead documentary about wall art in and around Los Angeles, but Varda evidently became pretty seriously depressed while filming that piece, in part because she was in Los Angeles and separated from Jacques Demy as a result.

Only someone of Varda's puckish intellect might have come up with the idea to make a narrative, supposedly "fictional", film about a woman isolated in California and experiencing pretty deep sadness, and then have the chutzpah to name the film Documenteur. Making this all the more "meta" is the fact that the focal character, Emilie, is played by Sabine Mamou, who was the editor of Mur Murs (and not so coincidentally this film as well). In the "but, wait, you also get" category, Emilie's son Martin is played by Mathieu Demy, Varda's own son with her famous director husband. And just for good measure, part of the film's narrative has to do with Emilie meeting a documentary film crew who are shooting a piece about wall art in Los Angeles. Is your head spinning yet?

There's a kind of wistful melancholy wafting through this piece which is virtually palpable, though once again Varda makes no bones about offering a female character who is able to rise above perceived obstacles (emotional or otherwise) to achieve some sense of stability. The lack of a really propulsive narrative drive actually probably helps to accentuate the emotional lethargy Emilie is experiencing, and the result is really one of Varda's more personal statements. That may be one reason why Varda herself has cited this film as being among her own personal favorites of hers.

Documenteur Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Documenteur is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Some prefatory text discloses that this was restored in 2011 by Agnès Varda, La Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma, Gilles Duval and La Fondation Technicolor pour le Patrimoine du Cinéma , which is then followed by credits for Ciné Tamaris, Eclair Laboratories, and L'Immagine Ritrovata, but unfortunately without any of the other information as to scan and/or restoration resolution or what kind of element was utilized. This is generally a fine looking transfer, but it's incredibly grainy a lot of the time, to the point that I wondered if this could have been sourced from a 16mm blowup for some reason. There can be yellowish, somewhat mottled grain at times, something that's noticeable in the opening credits, to cite just one example, but which recurs throughout, especially when Varda's camera captures skies in the beachside scenes. There's also some minor crush in some of the dark scenes. Clarity is somewhat variable, and a late scene with mother and son in a cafe looks pretty fuzzy. All of this said, a lot of the transfer looks very good, with commendable details and a nicely suffused palette.

Documenteur Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Documenteur features the original French track (which includes some English) in LPCM Mono, and an English dub (which includes some French) in Dolby Digital Mono. As with several other films in this set that offer this same "two fer", the French track has a bit more depth and is mixed a bit hotter than the English, but for those averse to subtitles, the lossy Dolby track may suffice perfectly well. There's a lot of voiceover in this film, which sounds fine in both tracks, and the music, which includes a lot of piano cues, also sounds warm, without any brashness.

Documenteur Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Kind of surprisingly, this is one of the only films in this set with no supplements, not even a short introduction from Varda.

Documenteur Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Documenteur is really fascinating within the context of Varda's life and her filmography at the juncture at which it was shot, but I'm not sure it has some of the same "universal" appeal that some of her other pieces do. This is a sad film a lot of the time, but it can also be strangely hopeful. Video is a little variable looking, but audio is fine.