Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Jane B. par Agnès V. Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 31, 2020

Note: This version of this film is available as part of The Complete Films of Agnès Varda. See below for a link to a previous Blu-ray release put out by Cinelicious Pics.

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.

This is one of the films in this set that has had a previous release on Blu-ray, in this case a Cinelicious Pics release that came out in 2016. While I'll follow this paragraph with some brief thoughts of my own, those wanting a complete "plot" recap (of this basically plotless amalgam of scenes featuring Jane Birkin) as well as comparison screenshots and information on that release's supplements, I refer you to Svet's Jane B. par Agnès V. Blu-ray review of the Cinelicious Pics release.

As Svet gets into in his review, Jane B. par Agnès V. is another deliberately disjunctive piece from Agnès Varda, one that kinda sorta pretends to be a documentary about Birkin, the legendary singer and actress whose life intersected regularly with Varda's, but which is filled to brim with odd, often rather whimsical and at least occasionally pretty amusing, vignettes offering Birkin a chance to act out various roles in what might be deemed a Varda directed audition reel.

Jane B. par Agnès V. Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Jane B. par Agnès V. 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 shot on 35mm argentic color stock in a 1.66 panoramic format which was restored by Ciné Tamaris in 2014 at Laboratory Eclair, with a 2K digital restoration from a 2K scan of the original negative. Color grading was supervised by Agnès Varda. This is yet another Varda film where almost 40 seconds of ambient sounds occur before even the prefatory text and mastheads appear. This is another fairly grainy looking effort, though there aren't any real resolution problems. Svet mentioned he felt things were pushed toward the warm side of things, but I have to say I had pretty much the opposite reaction, with this grading looking, like so many others in this set, kind of blue and cool, though I will say it's not as pronounced in this transfer as in some others in this set. This may be helped by the fact that Varda seems to be exploiting more subtle pastel tones a lot of the time here, as in some park scenes where Birkin becomes an almost pre-Raphaelite beauty. While some of the reds skew a bit orange again, as in some of the other films in this set, they can also pop rather well, as in the weird flamenco sequence late in the film. The black and white material has minor brightness fluctuations that pass through the frame. There are definite upticks in the already heavy grain field at certain moments, as in the sequence where Birkin returns to her flat at circa 23:42. Detail levels nonetheless remain pretty consistent throughout the presentation, and fine detail on things like the herringbone jacket Birkin wears resolve without any issues. While I'm basing things solely on a screenshot comparison, which has some inherent risks, this looks pretty darned similar if not outright identical to the Cinelicious Pics release.

Jane B. par Agnès V. Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jane B. par Agnès V. features an LPCM Mono track in the original French that some prefatory text states was sourced off the "original 35mm sound negative" (does sound have a negative?). This film features a basically fairly simple sound design, but the ubiquity of vignettes with Birkin taking on different roles does offer some opportunities for both ambient environmental effects and occasional intrusions of a kind of quiet, chamber music score. Dialogue and voiceover are all clear in this narrow but problem free track.

Jane B. par Agnès V. Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction from 2012 (1080i; 1:52) offers Varda's thoughts. In French with English subtitles.


• Agnes V. By Jane B. (1080p; 15:30) is a wonderful 2020 interview with Jane Birkin, where she discusses her friendship and collaborations with Varda. The main interview is in English, while the film clips are in French with English subtitles.


• Trailer (1080i; 2:36)

Jane B. par Agnès V. Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Having grown up with something of an arguably unhealthy obsession with the infamous song Je t'aime moi non plus famously performed by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg (fans will know there's a previous version with Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot which was withdrawn at Bardot's request, or at least the request of her husband), I may have been more of a prime audience for this piece than the general public at large. But this is in a way another of Varda's "feminist" anthems itself, in that she was inspired at least in part to make this film by Birkin being upset about her imminent 40th birthday and what that might mean for her as an actress. Video has a few variabilities, but audio is fine and the 2020 interview with Birkin is great. Recommended.