Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Les 3 boutons 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.

Les 3 boutons is described as an "anti-fairy tale", and in that regard it is both magical and pretty opaque. A young farm girl (Jasmine Thiré) who speaks directly to the camera throughout this short piece is tending to her goats when her ebullient mailman delivers a package. Inside the girl finds an immense magenta dress which is wafted by the winds into an "upright" position, at which point the girl enters "inside". She finally emerges, though it's not entirely clear if she's back where she started. She then tours her little village, where she loses three of the buttons on her clothing (not the magenta dress). The buttons are found by various people who respond differently, and then the piece ends with the mailman returning to an apparently abandoned farm to announce to the girl that anyone who loses three buttons will be granted three wishes. It's all rather strange and dreamlike, but even in this context Varda allows her young character to wax poetic about taking the reins of her own life and not bowing to the vagaries of fate and/or other outside influences.

Les 3 boutons Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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.

Les 3 boutons Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Les 3 boutons Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements associated with this short.

Les 3 boutons Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.