7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
After returning to Los Angeles from France in 1979, Agnès Varda created this kaleidoscopic documentary about the striking murals that decorate the city.
Director: Agnès VardaDocumentary | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
French: LPCM Mono
English: Dolby Digital Mono
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
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.
Mur Murs is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Some prefatory text discloses that this was restored in 2013 by L'Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Ciné Tamaris, with a 2K restoration from the 16mm original color negative. Agnès Varda supervised the color grading. This is another 16mm outing that can be somewhat roughhewn at times due to a pretty heavy grainfield, and short moments like the optically printed credits sequence can look fairly rough, with pretty fuzzy detail levels. That said, even in the roughest looking moments, the palette pops extremely well here, with blues and greens being especially vivid. The grain field tends to look quite gritty in a lot of the outdoor material where bright skies are in the frame. Densities are secure throughout the presentation, and fine detail on some of the "structures" like brick or stucco walls that have had murals or graffiti painted on them is typically very good. restored in 2013 by L'Immagine Tirtovata Laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Cine Tamaris restored in 2K from 16mm original color negative, Varda supervised color grading orig mono sound restored from the 16mm magnetic track English version optically printed credits look a little rough beautiful gorgeous colors on the wall, greens and blues especially vivid grain can be pretty gritty looking, especially against brighter skies good densities, fine detail on things like bricks or stucco siding is very good or bark of palm trees
Mur Murs features an original bilingual track delivered in LPCM Mono, and an English language track in Dolby Digital Mono. For some reason, the prefatory text states only that the original mono sound was restored from the 16mm magnetic track English version. The bilingual track has better depth and sounds slightly hotter, but both tracks deliver almost all of the narration and dialogue clearly. The one exception is some almost whispered comments in English that are used as interstitial "devices" between some of the narration, which can occasionally be somewhat hard to decipher. Even the supposed "English" track has some French in it. The optional English subtitles only translate the French in both tracks. There's a late outdoor performance of live music that sounds a bit distorted, but my sense is that stems from the amp being used, and is not a fault of the track itself.
This is another fascinating Varda documentary that seems to be about one thing on a surface level (literally, in this case, given the "surfaces" the wall art adorns), but which gets into a whole host of sidebar issues. Technical merits are generally solid, and Mur Murs comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
L'univers de Jacques Demy
1995
Les glaneurs et la glaneuse... deux ans après
2002
Agnès Varda: From Here to There
2011
1976
Ydessa, the Bears and etc.
2004
1964
Oncle Yanco
1967
Réponse de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe / Women Reply: Our Bodies, Our Sex
1975
1958
The So-Called Caryatids
1984
Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans
1993
1982
1966
1968
Along the Coast
1958
Varda par Agnès
2019
2015
You've Got Beautiful Stairs, You Know
1986
1984
2003