Les fiancés du pont Macdonald Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Les fiancés du pont Macdonald 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 fiancés du pont Mac Donald is the charming short film that is seen in passing about three quarters of the way through Cléo from 5 to 7. In her introductory comments included as a supplement, Varda talks about how she had a crew available for a day and got several of her famous friends to show up for an on the fly shoot, one which Varda said she designed around star Jean-Luc Godard's habit of always wearing sunglasses. Here, he portrays a kind of Harold Lloyd-like figure who finds his "outlook" on life "darkened" when he dons a pair of such eyewear. It's a goofy short that is nonetheless stuffed full of Varda's very enjoyable whimsy.

Les fiancés du pont Macdonald Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Les fiancés du pont Macdonald is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.35:1. This is one of the shorts in this set which doesn't offer any prefatory text about restorations or scans. This offers slightly pushed contrast which can tend to make whites bloom slightly at times, especially when skies are in the frame, but detail levels are excellent on things like finely patterned suit Godard wears or even the pores on his face. There are some minor signs of damage that can crawl through the frame at times. Grain resolves naturally.

Les fiancés du pont Macdonald Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with many of the shorts included in this set, Les fiancés du pont Macdonald features only a lossy Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack. That's especially unfortunate in this case since this "silent" film offers what was evidently an improvised piece by the wonderful Michel Legrand on piano (with some cheeky percussion accompanying). Fidelity is fine within the lossy context.

Les fiancés du pont Macdonald Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Agnès on Les fiancés (1080i; 2:57) offers some brief comments by Varda on the film. In French with English subtitles.

Les fiancés du pont Macdonald Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Les fiancés du pont Macdonald is a charming and whimsical piece that has the added benefit of having a link to one of the most legendary French films of all time, as well as providing a really fun side of several notables who were in Varda's orbit, notably Jean-Luc Godard. Video is generally solid, but this is another short with only lossy audio.