Du côté de la côte Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Du côté de la côte 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.

Du côté de la côte is, like its "sibling" on Disc Two of this set O saisons, ô châteaux, a 1958 documentary that serves as something of a "travelogue", though in this case Varda's somewhat cheeky, mischievous sense of humor is much more on display. With an array of superbly inviting images showing various locations along the French Riviera, Varda's commentary, delivered by a variety of narrators, offers a somewhat trenchant analysis of tourist culture in general, and perhaps its French subset particularly. As with O saisons, ô châteaux there's some frequently fascinating historical tidbits dropped along the way, but in this instance, even though this evidently was done for an official tourist organization, Varda felt a little more free to contribute her own reaction to things. One way or the other, the scenery is downright awe inspiring.

Du côté de la côte Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Du côté de la côte is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. A prefatory text card discloses this was sourced off the original 35mm negative and scanned in 2K. The results are pretty ravishing, with some really nicely variant tones in the blue and green ranges and Varda's camera explores the seaside. Detail levels are generally excellent throughout, though as with O saisons, ô châteaux , she often frames things midrange, probably in order to get as much beautiful scenery as she can in any given shot. There are some very minor density fluctuations, but nothing that I personally found problematic in any significant way. Grain looks natural throughout and encounters no resolution issues whatsoever.

Du côté de la côte Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Many of the shorts in this collection feature only lossy audio, and Du côté de la côte has only a Dolby Digital Mono track. The ubiquity of undemanding elements like narration probably make that a bit more palatable than it might otherwise be, and all of the voiceover sounds fine. The short features a score by the legendary Georges Delerue which also sounds fine, though of course it probably would have sounded considerably better in a lossless setting. Optional English subtitles are provided.

Du côté de la côte Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction from 2007 (1080i; 1:58) offers Varda's comments. In French with English subtitles.

Du côté de la côte Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Du côté de la côte is a visually ravishing piece that is also often rather bitingly humorous. It's a great example of Varda finding her "voice" in an unexpected idiom, and it makes for an appealing double feature with O saisons, ô châteaux, especially to see how Varda approached "travelogue" documentaries pretty radically differently depending on her goals. Video is gorgeous, but there's only lossy audio on this release.