➤ AGNÈS VARDA, from p.28
While the idea of a director carrying
around a tiny video camera
quickly became banal, at the time
she likened her ability to quickly
fi lm images without the need for
a crew to the gleaners’ marginality.
As the fi lm’s title suggests, she
started looking inward and putting
herself at the front of her fi lms.
Looked at in a cynical light, she
became a prophet of an era where
artists need to become brands to
fi nd an audience.
Varda re-emerged as a cuddly,
grandmotherly persona — someone
fi lmmakers, especially women,
could simultaneously respect as an
inspiring precursor and view as a
model for their own practice. Starting
in late middle age and going
into the 21st century, her own life
become one of her main subjects,
in fi lms like “The Beaches of Agnès.”
➤ ATLANTICS, from p.28
slips into myth (drawing on the Islamic
concept of the djinn, a spirit
born of fi re) and fantasy. Diop plays
with lush green and blue lights
that look like laser projections. The
fi lm rhymes with Bertrand Bonello’s
“Zombi Child,” which played
alongside it at this year’s New York
Film Festival. Both suggest that
it’s necessary to depart from realism
to accurately depict life in former
French colonies. “Atlantics”
fl irts with imagery out of a zombie
fi lm, which could be insulting in a
different context: black people with
white contact lenses, possessed
by the spirits of the dead. But this
fi lm sees something positive in this
nebulous state.
Diop’s fi rst short, made 10 years
ago, was called “Atlantiques” and
showed young men talking about
their experiences in Europe. She’s
the niece of the great Senegalese
director Djibril Diop Mambéty,
whose classic 1973 “Touki Bouki”
is an obvious touchstone for her.
Her short “A Thousand Suns” profi
led its lead actor, Magaye Niang.
“Touki Bouki” depicted a couple
who dream of fi nding freedom in
France, showing the pitfalls and
ironies of their plan to escape. “Atlantics”
shows how the pressure to
leave Africa persists to this day.
“Atlantics” is concerned about
the women left behind when men
She also devoted three fi lms,
including the brilliant “Jacquot de
Nantes,” to her late bisexual husband
Jacques Demy.
But it’s evident she consciously
created an appealing image. As
she points out repeatedly in “Varda
by Agnès,” she combed reality and
fi ction even in her slickest fi lms.
“Le Bonheur” is fi lled with bright
primary colors and a soundtrack
dominated by Mozart, but she
cast non-professional actor Jean-
Claude Drouot and his real wife
and children in the lead roles. Her
narrative fi lms have a touch of reality
— here, she includes a scene
from “Cléo From 5 To 7” where the
camera catches people obviously
staring into it, startled by the fi lm
shoot. Her documentaries were
willing to play with fi ction.
The second half of “Varda by
Agnès” fi nally ventures into a subject
she hasn’t covered before: her
emigrate from Senegal, keeping its
eye on Ada and her female friends.
Diop doesn’t unleash her full lyrical
potential until the fi lm’s second
half. In addition to her fi lmmaking,
she worked as an actor, making a
splash in Claire Denis’ “35 Shots
of Rum.” The mix of dreamlike and
tactile images owes something to
Denis, the pace allowing one to
luxuriate in the setting. Fatima
Al Qadiri’ s subdued score propels
the mood without ever trying to
dominate the fi lm.
Diop has likened Ada and Souleiman
to an African Romeo and Juliet,
saying she wanted to create an
equally iconic couple. If the fi lm is
concerned with the pressures that
lead Africans to leave for Europe
under dangerous circumstances
and the traditions that force women
to marry men they don’t love,
it avoids the received notions that
come with those realities. The love
story feels more central to Diop’s
mission than her politics, as she
fi gures out how her couple can stay
together. “Atlantics” doesn’t have
much interest in explaining itself,
but its romanticism resonates long
after the fi lm ends.
ATLANTICS | Directed by Mati
Diop | In Wolof and French with
English subtitles | Netfl ix | Museum
of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St. |
Nov. 22-28; Netfl ix streaming begins
Nov. 29| moma.org
work as a visual artist. Here, she
returns to her roots as a photographer
(which she pursued before
becoming a director) and rethinks
her practice for a time where cinema’s
centrality has faded. In “Papautopia,”
Varda created an installation
mixing the real and reel:
three screens of potatoes with 700
pounds of sprouting potatoes on
the gallery in front of them. As fi lm
turned into a digital medium and
cans of celluloid no longer became
necessary to show it, she recycled
canisters of “Le Bonheur” into a
shack.
This idea of recycling is central
to the achievements of “Varda by
Agnès.” On the surface, it’s just a
fi lm of her talking about her fi lms.
But it’s very carefully crafted, cutting
between her two lectures,
scenes of Varda speaking outside
(including a conversation in the
rain with “Vagabond” actor Sandrine
Bonnaire on the camera
tracks where it was shot), and footage
from her movies and other artwork.
If one knows her fi lms well,
much of what Varda says will be
familiar, but I can’t imagine this
serving as a good intro to her work.
I don’t think it needed to run over
two hours.
But even if it’s fl awed, it reveals
her constant re-invention. It also
closes on the best possible note: a
serene acceptance of her mortality
that recognizes that this fi lm
would be her last chance to speak
for herself.
VARDA BY AGNÈS | Directed by
Agnès Varda | In French with English
subtitles | Janus Films | Opens
Nov. 22 | Film Forum, 209 W. Houston
St.; fi lmforum.org | Film at Lincoln
Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe
Film Center, 144 W. 65th St.; fi lmlinc.
org
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