ADirected by Agnes Varda and JR Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Documentaries are rarely served by the documentarians themselves appearing in front of the camera. Overheated navel-gazing ensues, or less irritatingly, they fail by being less interesting than the subject they’re filming. The exception to this is Agnes Varda, a distinctive and unique presence who is welcome to talk about herself onscreen for as long as she wants. In her beautiful Faces Places, the iconic French director teams up with youthful photographer JR for a trip through a lesser-seen France, far away from the streets of Paris. The unlikely duo bring joy wherever they go, both to the blue-collar inhabitants of the countryside and to the viewer.
Varda is well-known for her acclaimed films that blur the line between fiction and nonfiction, and she can count JR amongst her acolytes. He’s long been fascinated with faces and erects giant murals of them, an idea he got from a Varda film. Faces Places chronicles their journey as they set out to do exactly that with colorful personalities they meet along the way. The France they capture is just as picaresque as the more famous landmarks and settings, packed with elegant and dignified people who are deeply moved by Varda’s and JR’s work. Old photos of miners go up on rowhouses where they used to live, reminders of a time when a declining village was thriving. Blight is covered over with crowd shots of townspeople taken during an impromptu festival. The wives of stevedores are put on a huge stack of shipping crates. These incredible exhibits speak to an exaltation of the ordinary that is a recurring theme in this and the only other Varda film, The Gleaners and I, that I’ve seen, and the irresistibility of Faces Places ensures that I’ll be looking for that theme as I dig through her filmography.
Between projects, Varda and JR make a charming couple. Separated by 55 years, they seem like they’ve been friends their whole lives. They sing together on car rides in JR’s distinctive van painted to look like a camera, and chat on park benches while the too-short-to-touch-the-ground Varda adorably swings her legs. She puts plenty of herself in her documentaries and this one is no exception. With a few years of life left at the time of filming (she died in 2019), she’s gently macabre about her looming death and includes footage of her having procedures done as she contemplates the end. Though indifferent about death itself, she does want to repair some relationships before it’s too late, particularly that with past collaborator Jean Luc Goddard. In addition to the question of whether or not her venerable counterpart is going to appear on camera, the film comes ready-made with another arc, as Varda begs JR to take off his sunglasses and let her see his eyes, something he doesn’t do for anyone as part of his personal schtick. She seems to be a completely open book, and this piece of withholding drives her mad, or at least as mad as such a petite fairy-tale creature can be.
Faces Places is primarily a superb hang-out film. Besides the approaching death of a woman who’s lived an eventful and full life and the general passage of time, there’s nothing so weighty to be contemplated or some human drama to plumb the depths of. It’s two lovely people meeting more lovely people and bringing the camera along with them. Varda and JR make it look easy. A
Between projects, Varda and JR make a charming couple. Separated by 55 years, they seem like they’ve been friends their whole lives. They sing together on car rides in JR’s distinctive van painted to look like a camera, and chat on park benches while the too-short-to-touch-the-ground Varda adorably swings her legs. She puts plenty of herself in her documentaries and this one is no exception. With a few years of life left at the time of filming (she died in 2019), she’s gently macabre about her looming death and includes footage of her having procedures done as she contemplates the end. Though indifferent about death itself, she does want to repair some relationships before it’s too late, particularly that with past collaborator Jean Luc Goddard. In addition to the question of whether or not her venerable counterpart is going to appear on camera, the film comes ready-made with another arc, as Varda begs JR to take off his sunglasses and let her see his eyes, something he doesn’t do for anyone as part of his personal schtick. She seems to be a completely open book, and this piece of withholding drives her mad, or at least as mad as such a petite fairy-tale creature can be.
Faces Places is primarily a superb hang-out film. Besides the approaching death of a woman who’s lived an eventful and full life and the general passage of time, there’s nothing so weighty to be contemplated or some human drama to plumb the depths of. It’s two lovely people meeting more lovely people and bringing the camera along with them. Varda and JR make it look easy. A
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