7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A lonely French woman faces growing despair while living with her son in Los Angeles.
Starring: Sabine Mamou, Mathieu Demy, Lisa Blok-Linson, Tina Odom, Gary FeldmanForeign | 100% |
Drama | 60% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
French: LPCM Mono
English: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
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 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 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.
Kind of surprisingly, this is one of the only films in this set with no supplements, not even a short introduction from Varda.
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.
(Still not reliable for this title)
The Creatures
1966
Le petit amour
1988
The Pleasure of Love in Iran
1976
Diary of a Pregnant Woman
1958
1969
1982
2015
You've Got Beautiful Stairs, You Know
1986
1984
L'univers de Jacques Demy
1995
Jane B. for Agnes V.
1988
Les glaneurs et la glaneuse... deux ans après
2002
Agnès Varda: From Here to There
2011
1976
Ydessa, the Bears and etc.
2004
2003
1964
Réponse de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe / Women Reply: Our Bodies, Our Sex
1975
1958
The So-Called Caryatids
1984