As the name suggests, Listen to Varda, the most famous female director of the New Wave era, the autobiographical film of Agnès Varda, who was active in the film and art world until her death this year.
And the title (Varda par Agnès) is not a small language game, which means that this is the artwork of Agnès, a 90-year-old grandmother with a cute two-color mushroom head, who removed her famous surname to talk about her other incarnation, Varda, known as the "Grandmother of the French New Wave". In reality, it is this mixture of the private and the public that runs through her life's work, together forming Agnès Varda, a unique legend of film history.
The documentary eventually became Varda's last work, and shortly after its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, Varda sadly passed away, surprisingly to countless fans, because at this time, Varda, even at the age of 90, seemed to be enjoying the second spring of his career - "Face, Village" with French street artist JR the previous year became one of the hottest films of the year, and in that year Varda also received an Oscar for lifetime achievement, and often used "cardboard" as "cardboard". Versions appear on the streets of Hollywood or New York.
Stills from "Face, Village"
At the beginning of "Listen to Varda", Varda says that her artistic philosophy is three words: "inspiration, creation, sharing", and at this moment in her later years, Varda, who has precipitated her life's creation, has obviously chosen to put sharing at the top of her mind, which is also the starting point of this documentary: a final sharing.
The film is divided into two parts, the first part focuses on Varda's 20th-century film masterpieces: "Cleo at Five to Seven", "One Sing, One Does Not Sing", "The Fallen Woman at the End of the World", etc., while the second part turns to Varda, who has transformed into a visual artist in the digital age of the 21st century, and makes new discoveries in many fields such as documentary and installation art.
Stills from "The Fallen Woman of the End of the World"
The synopsis of the film itself doesn't seem to be so appealing, except that Varda has produced a masterclass version of the film based on the content of the masterclass lectures he has held in recent years in various countries, mixed with his own works and other materials. However, after Varda's skillful editing, the documentary's ingenuity in detail is still moving, not only as a reading of Varda's work sequence looks interesting, but also reflects a magical point - Varda seems to be traveling through time and space? This may seem mysterious, but it is at the heart of Varda's philosophy.
Agnès Varda
In one clip, Varda might be sitting in a theater talking to the audience, and then the camera cuts to something that corresponds to the lecture—a clip from a movie, a photograph, and so on. But look, when the camera cuts back to Varda's lecture, we suddenly realize that Varda is not cutting into the same lecture in the previous paragraph—we are no longer in the original theater, but in another lecture in another location, the two places may not even be in the same country; what's more, Varda will edit each other with her interview images from different years and materials today, reflecting the texture of time and space breaking and converging. In the case of the name of another Varda documentary, Agnès Varda Here and There, she is both here and there, and she is everywhere.
Stills from "Listen to Varda"
As carefully as this editing has been in mind, Varda has traveled the world for more than half a century, and unlike many of her New Wave peers, her activities extend far beyond Paris, whether it's coming to early liberation China with Chris Mark in the '50s (filming Mark's Sunday in Beijing) or traveling to Los Angeles in the late '60s with her husband Jacques Demi (standard collection CC has launched a set of DVDs dedicated to Varda's work in California). Filming the Revolution of the American Black Panther Party (short film "The Black Panther Party"), shooting huge graffiti on the streets of Los Angeles ("The Whisper of the Wall"), and the same as the huge photos aimed at "Face" more than a decade later.
Beijing Sunday
As a form of communication between people across time and space, the film fulfills Varda's desire to be among the world's people, and she is able to share her creations with the world, which is why she plays Instagram in JR's footsteps, perhaps not "pure" from an artistic point of view (Godard, who refuses to appear at the end of "Face", is her opposite), but she loves living in this world, loves the people and things she meets, and she is always sensitive. Varda's work is different from the optimism of the times, but at the same time it is so radical in the face of real problems; and we, disappointed by the corruption and regression of the world, forget the beauty in those corners.
When talking about Varda, it is inevitable to talk about feminism, but Agnès, for his part, chooses to penetrate delicately from the film. As in the clips in the documentary, Varda's focus is not on what he wants to talk about, but on how he talks about it.
So when she talks about the "female gaze", she describes how cleo cut the film in half in "Cleo at Five to Seven" and filmed Cleo leaving the "fairy-tale" white home and going to the world step by step to observe; how the translational push-track shots that appear every 10 minutes in "The Fallen Woman" show the anger of the heroine Mona; or the face and body of Jane Birkin in the form of paintings and silent films in "A Thousand Faces treasure gold". Even when talking about the most serious issues, such as the struggle for abortion rights in "One Sing, One Don't Sing," Varda chose to use musicals and the brightest colors to remind one of Demi's musical films, where in a cynical era she sought a peaceful, optimistic middle ground.
Varda and Oscar
In 1975, when the film was released, women in France regained their rights, and more than 40 years later, when faced with crimes in places like Alabama today, it was a good moment for Varda's work to re-enlighten us.
The concise credo of "inspiration, creation, sharing" means that Varda's films are always concerned with reconciliation, the proximity of people to each other. From the friendship of the two sisters in "One Song", to the reconciliation of people and "garbage" in "The Gleaner", to the people's party under the giant portrait in "Face".
All in all, it's all about giving us a glimpse of an ideal world, even if we're still far from it, but Varda has always believed this and shared it with the audience, and now it's our turn.
Written by | twy
Typography | Lin Yichun Li Kexin Wang Shi'ao
Proofreading | Sun Shengnan
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