Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

The Young Girls Turn 25 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.

What would you consider to be the most stylish film musical made in the 1960s? With an emphasis on that stylish part (as opposed to other elements), my hunch is a lot of people might gravitate to hugely successful and innovative American film musicals like Robert Wise's West Side Story or even less successful (from a box office perspective at least) outings like Bob Fosse's Sweet Charity. Of course there were many film musicals that the American film industry cranked out in this decade, even if the genre was beginning to fade, some of which had stylish moments to be sure, but for sixties musicals that offered almost a riot of style, not to mention ravishing music, I'd have to say you'd have to look pretty far and wide to do better than Jacques Demy's two iconic films The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and its kinda sorta follow up The Young Girls of Rochefort.

If The Umbrellas of Cherbourg can be kind of sad and wistful, The Young Girls of Rochefort is more ebullient and kinetic, and that provides this documentary done on the 25th anniversary of The Young Girls of Rochefort's 1967 debut some of its own energy. This sees a number of the principal cast and crew of the film returning to Rochefort for a celebration, and there are some fun interviews intercut with scenes from the film. This is one of Varda's more straightforward documentary efforts, and it should be enjoyed by anyone who loves either or both of Demy's most famous musicals made in the 1960s.

The Young Girls Turn 25 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

The Young Girls Turn 25 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction from 2012 (1080i; 1:47) offers Varda's thoughts. In French with English subtitles.

The Young Girls Turn 25 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.