Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Les créatures 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.

One of the things that continually fascinated me as I wended my way through all of the films in this set is how Varda, one of the more unique documentarians of her time, could also at least flirt with what might be thought of as an "anti-documentarian" approach like magical realism. I'm not sure Varda ever truly tips over into full blown magical realism, but she certainly comes close some of the time, and Les créatures serves as a suitable example of those tendencies. Les créatures was not especially well received when it was released, and even Varda evidently thought of it as something of a failure, but it once again provides a compelling example of how Varda loved to deconstruct the expectations of her audience, delivering little jolts of surprise along the way.

Edgar (Michel Piccoli) and Mylène (Catherine Deneuve) are a married couple out for a drive, and Mylène is urging Edgar to slow down. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that overt of a foreshadowing, and of course Edgar ends up crashing the car. As can be the case in some of Varda's narrative films in particular, she elides certain elements, leaving the viewer at least temporarily unsure of what the upshot of that accident is with regard to Mylène, though Edgar bears a rather nasty wound on his forehead. Things become even more strange as the story continues, with a number of absolutely baffling interchanges between Edgar and various residents of what seems to be yet another typically Varda- esque isolated village, until finally one of the film's conceits is divulged: Edgar is an author, and at least some what has been depicted is evidently his "imagination" running wild as he comes up with ideas for his latest book.

This is a Varda film with absolute tons of subtext, but I'm not sure Varda's sometimes disjunctive style ever makes things clear enough for that subtext to really penetrate. There are any number of fascinating ideas here, including what inspiration may mean, how imagination can "seep" into everyday life, and whether or not people are "robots" (almost literally in one sense in this film) subject to the vagaries of fate, but Varda's presentational approach is just flat out weird at times, making this film almost willfully opaque.

Les créatures Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Les créatures is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Some prefatory text states that the film was shot on 35mm black and white and color stock and restored by Ciné Tamaris and the CNC in 2020. The prefatory text also states that the digital restoration was done from "the original negative backup", which I assume is tech speak for a dupe negative. Detail levels here are generally very appealing, especially in the black and white material, where black levels are secure and gray scale is generally very well modulated. The "negative backup" element may account for a slightly heavier grain field than I was expecting, and there's also some slight flicker at times, as well as a brief but pretty badly mottled section at circa 29:38 with Edgar in a field with a horse. I don't really consider the "color" sections to really be in color, since they're really more like black and white material that has been tinted various tones. That tinting can occasionally highlight grain even more, and at times fine detail levels can ebb as a result. Clarity is generally very good, but some intermittent outdoor material looks softer than the bulk of the transfer. My score is 4.25.

Les créatures Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Les créatures features an LPCM Mono track that is just slightly surreal sounding at times, courtesy of a really strident and atonal score by Pierre Barbaud (interspersed with relatively tamer source cues from Henry Purcell), as well as what seems to be a lot of post-looped material, where (as they say) "sync is loose" and more than a bit reminiscent of Italian cinema. All of that said, fidelity is fine throughout the presentation, and I noticed no real issues with regard to damage.

Les créatures Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction from 2012 (1080i; 2:42) offers Varda's thoughts. In French with English subtitles.


• Varda on Set (1080i; 18:41) is culled from footage shot by a television crew in 1965 who caught Varda both on set and at home. In French with English subtitles.

Les créatures Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Les créatures has a lot on its veritable mind, but I'm not sure it ever communicates that content adequately. The film is hallucinatory and certainly unique, but it may simply be too strange to really resonate. Technical merits are generally strong and the two supplements are worthwhile.