6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Twenty-five years after the release of "The Young Girls of Rochefort", Agnès Varda returned to Rochefort to convene a one-of-a-kind reunion: Catherine Deneuve, Jacques Perrin, composer Michel Legrand, and then-publicist Bertrand Tavernier revisit the streets that they imbued with a dreamy second life.
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Agnès Varda, Michel Legrand, Jacques Perrin, Bertrand TavernierForeign | 100% |
Documentary | 26% |
Music | 2% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
French: LPCM Mono
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
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.
The Young Girls Turn 25 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 shot on 16mm silver color stock in a 1.37:1 format, which was restored in 2013 by DIG Image, with a digital 2K resotration from the A and B bands of the original 16mm negative. Agnès Varda supervised the color grading. This is probably the most extremely variable looking presentation in the entire set, with some of the proceedings resembling 16mm film, but others with a really peculiar appearance that I assume is based on some kind of low res video capture. Opening credits and some establishing shots and stills look generally fine, but then at circa 2:55 for the first (but not last time), things start to look odd and quasi-pixellated, with what almost looks like a fine scrim overlaying the imagery, so that a tiny gridlike pattern covers the entirety of the frame (look at the first screenshot accompanying this review in full resolution to get some idea of what I'm talking about, and this is not even the most severe example of this anomaly). A lot of the interview sequences have this weird look, but there are exceptions for some reason, as in the interview starting at circa 7:17 with Jacques Perrin (Maxence), which looks much more like film. Because of the extreme variances on display, some may feel even my "middling" score of 3.0 for the video here is overly generous.
The Young Girls Turn 25 features an LPCM Mono mix, with prefatory text stating that the original mono sound was restored from the 35mm magnetic mix. This is a film comprised almost entirely of interviews and some interstitial narration, both of which sound fine. A few of the source cues featuring music from the original film can sound slightly muffled at times. Optional English subtitles are available.
This is one of several "reunion" films Varda did over the course of her long career, and it's one of the more enjoyable. Everyone associated with the original film seems to be genuinely delighted to return to Rochefort for the celebration of its 25th anniversary, and that joy suffuses the entire film. This has some of the frankly weirdest looking video in the set, which fans should take into consideration, but audio is fine.
(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
Réponse de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe / Women Reply: Our Bodies, Our Sex
1975
1958
The So-Called Caryatids
1984
1982
1966
Varda par Agnès
2019
Along the Coast
1958
Mural Murals
1981
2015
You've Got Beautiful Stairs, You Know
1986
1984
Oncle Yanco
1967
1968
2003