Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2008


The Beaches of Agns

Buy The Beaches of Agns now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




'The Beaches of Agns' is a 2008 French documentary film directed by Agns Varda. The film is an autobiographical essay where Varda revisits places from her past, reminisces about life and celebrates her 80th birthday on camera. Varda said it would most likely be her last film, but released the Oscar-nominated documentary 'Faces Places' a decade later.

Style



Varda uses a wide variety of techniques, combining still images of people, including her past friends, collaborators, lovers and family, with what Claude Lvi-Strauss might term bricolage of garage-sale items, trinkets, and colorful memorabilia juxtaposed in creative combinations, and combines beautiful images in a collage format which revolves around the theme of beaches. In the opening shots, she has assistants film her bringing mirrors to a beach in Belgium which she used to visit as a young girl; one mirror is on the sand as a wave washes over it. She captures a creative French artistic sensibility with a sincere and playful appreciation for the beauty of film and art and a joie de vivre.

Reception



'The New York Times' critic Manohla Dargis wrote in 2009:



... It is at once an illustration of the fine art of foraging and an autobiographical portrait, narrated by its self-described little old lady, pleasantly plump. ... Ms. Varda is picking through the world, close to home and far afield, finding images that please her and give her pause ... that she scrutinizes with rue if no obvious regret. But here the emphasis is on her own life and the images and memories that, with time, have blurred together. ... The images are as delightful, unexpected and playfully uninhibited ... At one point, she says she thinks of all men who look at the sea as Ulysses (shes an aquatic soul), but shes every bit the wanderer. Whether shes roving a beach with a camera or rummaging through flea markets, she seeks and finds, gleaning the word means to collect and examine what this world of wonders has in store.



References




Buy The Beaches of Agns now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 2008



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1096052916.