7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A 14-year-old girl opens a package containing a magical magenta ball dress ten times her teenage size.
Director: Agnès VardaForeign | 100% |
Short | 18% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.95:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.00:1
French: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
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.
Les 3 boutons is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.95:1. I haven't been able to find any authoritative technical information on the shoot, and this is one of the shorts in this set that doesn't have any prefatory text describing the provenance of the element or any restoration work done. However, the short's relatively recent genesis means this presentation is free of any age related wear and tear, and detail levels are routinely excellent, faltering only in some dark moments, as when the girl "enters" the dress and finds herself in a cave. The palette is just slightly tamped down at times, though little bursts of color, as in the purplish-red gown that arrives, pop with some immediacy.
Unfortunately a lot of the shorts in this set feature lossy audio, and this piece offers only a Dolby Digital 2.0 track. It suffices well enough for the small scale sound design ambitions of this film, which offer first person confessionals delivered to the camera, along with a bit of music as well as some ambient environmental sounds once the girl enters a village. Optional English subtitles are available.
There are no supplements associated with this short.
Les 3 boutons is completely charming, even if it perhaps intentionally bypasses the rational part of the brain to deliver something a bit more dreamlike. The film has its own Varda-esque take on magical realism, and is sweet, if perhaps ultimately indecipherable. Technical merits are solid, though the lossy audio is a bit of a disappointment.
(Still not reliable for this title)
You've Got Beautiful Stairs, You Know
1986
1984
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
1982
1966
Along the Coast
1958
Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald ou (Méfiez-vous des lunettes noires) / The Fiancés of the Bridge Mac Donald
1961
L'univers de Jacques Demy
1995
Les glaneurs et la glaneuse... deux ans après
2002
Agnès Varda: From Here to There
2011
1976
The Pleasure of Love in Iran
1976
Diary of a Pregnant Woman
1958
Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans
1993
Oncle Yanco
1967