Faces Places

2017 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Agnes Varda makes a new buddy, and they travel around France together to meet even more friends and plaster their pictures on the sides of buildings.

God bless Agnes Varda. I really need more Agnes Varda in my life. Cinema needs more Agnes Vardas, and you know what? The world needs more people like Agnes Varda, too. Varda, just like with Gleaners and Beaches is an octogenarian explorer. She's more curious about minutia than most people are about things that are really significant. I love watching her interactions with the subjects she and JR, the photographer and co-writer/director of Faces Places, encounter. When you watch this, listen to the questions that she asks. JR asks questions as well, trying to get to a heart in these everyday folks' lives. But when Varda probes, they are these simple questions that seem like the kinds of questions everybody would think to ask but actually wouldn't think to ask them at all. She and JR spin this ginormous portrait plastering idea into unique territories a few times during this, and with the majority of these, the results are rewarding and sometimes even moving. Take that woman in the mining town, for example. Her reaction to seeing her face on the side of her house is one of the best reactions to art that I think I've ever seen. Listen to the reactions from the factory workers who posed for a couple of group photos. And watch how the focus switches from the dock workers to their wives near the end of the movie.

I also love the friendship that develops between our co-directors. Although JR hides his eyes behind these sunglasses all the time, much to the chagrin of Varda, you can still tell that he has a genuine affection for his collaborator. They bicker a bit, playfully; they tease each other about those sunglasses and the past affections for men's buttocks; and they share philosophies, sometimes contrasting because these are two artists at different stages of their lives. This is almost like a buddy road comedy at times, and their partnership is the kind of thing that could easily be a television series. Faces Places--or Visages Villages, the title I actually prefer--could have gone on for days, and I would have enjoyed every second of it. This feels like such a small serving!

Sadly, Agnes Varda isn't going to be around forever, and a lot of the conversations in this are about her mortality, her failing eyesight, her fatigue. It doesn't make me sad that Varda is a mortal. What makes me sad is that there just aren't enough people like her. If only more people desired making connections with others, understood that there is art in the everyday, and had a willingness to explore and find out more about the world and its people, then we would be in much better shape.

Godard, by the way, really comes out of this one seeming like an asshole.