VARDA BY AGNÈS: the French filmmaker's final gift is--no surprise--another marvel & treasure

A combination of honest, eloquent lecture filled with fascinating tidbits of French film history and a kind of crash course in first-class filmmaking -- granted, it's from a single, personal and very unusual perspective -- VARDA BY AGNÈS, the final film from one of the greats, Agnès Varda, who died this past March, is as eye-opening, charming and moving as any of her many fans will certainly expect.

As much as TrustMovies imagined he already knew about Varda and her work (the filmmaker is shown at right and below), the new documentary offers alternately the expected and some nice surprises.

Chief among the latter is the extended recent interview with that fine French actress Sandrine Bonnaire, who starred early in her career in Varda's Vagabond, from 1985. Bonnaire's conversation with the filmmaker is engaged and loving, even though some very difficult days of filming are recalled by both women.

We revisit other classic narrative Varda cinema such as Cleo From 5 to 7 and Le Bonheur, along with more recent documentaries like The Gleaners and I, The Beaches of Agnes, and last year's Faces Places, and the result is a kind of partial/mini retrospective which both reminds us of how wonderful are these films and brings us new information about them and the manner in which they were made.

Along the way, we learn of Varda's beginnings as a photographer, of her first foray into filmmaking -- La Pointe Courte (that's a young Alain Resnais, at work editing the film, above with Varda) -- and we even get to see her dressed as a potato for her Venice Biennale presentation (it's somehow a perfect visual match!).

The documentary grows ever more personal as it moves along. Even though Varda's oeuvre was so often focused on others, as she grew older, the work became as much about her as about her subjects. Fortunately she remains as interesting as they were.

This final testament is a grand way for the filmmaker to make her exit, and if this is your introduction to her work -- and you're relatively young -- you'll have plenty of time to drink it all in. Released by Janus Films, Varda by Agnès (which was originally produced for French television in two one-hour segments), in French and some English with English subtitles, runs two full hours and opens this Friday, November 22, in New York City at Film Forum and at Film at Lincoln Center. It also opens Dec 5 in Los Angeles at the Aero theater and then will be expanding nationwide. 

MILESTONES and ICE: Robert Kramer films make a belated North American DVD debut

Thanks to Icarus Films, a couple of movies from the late American filmmaker Robert Kramer recently made their North American DVD debut: MILESTONES (reviewed below) and ICE (a film which TrustMovies hopes to cover at a later date). Kramer was born in New York City but died in France, after moving there to continue his film work in a Europe where his kind of left-wing philosophy and commitment were a good deal more understood and appreciated than here. Made in 1975, Milestones attempts to give voice and visuals to an increasingly disaffected youth (some of them a little older than that) whose -- and I do not use this term lightly or disrespectfully -- "hippie" ideals from the decade previous turned out to be, well, unobtainable.

Kramer, shown at right, and his co-director/editor/
cinematographer John Douglas, use a documentary style that consists of conversations -- between couples, friends, relatives, journalists/
interviewees -- that take place all over the country: inside, outside and on the road. These conversations have to do with how they (and if you're old enough to think back a few decades, we) lived then, watching some of our/their dreams and goals crumbling. The movie begins with a wonderful old woman, who eventually grows mortally ill, describing/showing her life and family, at home and work, to a young journalist. It ends (or nearly so) with the birth of a baby, shown below, as prolonged and graphic as any birth I have seen, even in this day and age of oh-so-special "special effects" (I believe this birth is all real, by the way).

The above sounds as if you might be watching a documentary, and at most times during the movie, you'll swear that you are. TM certainly thought he was. It was not until some point, probably more than half way along this very long (three hours and fifteen minute) film, that -- with the attempted rape of a young woman and the non-interference from the filmmaker -- it suddenly dawned upon him that this was no documentary.

This says something both for and against the film and its performances. The acting is at once so "real" and finally a bit plodding and single-note, that it is perhaps too easy to imagine it as a documentary in which the people being documented are just a little too cowed by the filmmaker to be completely real. There is a sameness to many of the performances here that either connote amateur acting and/or amateur film-making.

The discussions -- particularly those between the couple (above) who later travel the road with their son -- go back and back and back again to what she wants, and what he wants, and how she says he won't allow himself to experience his own feelings, etc. that I thought for a horrible moment that I had been transpoted back in time to my "couples therapy group" circa the mid-1970s. There is way too much jargon being spouted, and a little of this, as usual with any kind of jargon, goes a long way.

Other relationships fare better -- like the odd, sweet connection between a blind potter (above) and his new friend who, as you observe them, seem like they might be... well, gay? But no mention is ever made of sexuality. In a later scene, as one reads to the other and they cuddle in bed, no explanation is necessary.

In addition to that attempted rape, there's an attempted burglary and a shoot-out. Plus a prolonged fantasy/nightmare section in which one character (above), a recent prison inmate, dreams/imagines all kinds of unpleasant stuff (below), most of which has a decidedly political/social/economic/cultural/historic undertone. These are among the least effective sections of the movie because they stand out from everything that surrounds them -- in a manner that makes them seem more artificial, "dramatic" and consequently fake than most of what we've seen.

One of the real treats of the film is watching the acting of Grace Paley -- yes, the writer and subject of a wonderful documentary that has yet to be released here in NYC. She plays a character named Helen who pops up several times throughout the movie, and if you're a Paley fan, this alone might make Milestones a must-see. If that doesn't, then maybe the movie's "take" on the American Indian, or its occasional shots of full-frontal guys and gals (below), or its rather charming scene set in a restaurant/bar complete with the music of its time will draw you in. (The specter of Vietnam also hangs over the whole movie.)

However, no one else I can think of works in quite the way Kramer did, combining documentary style with narrative and putting his ideas on politics, love, family, work and life together in a way that shows how difficult it is to separate these into any neat little categories. His movie may clunk from time and to time, as he seemingly lurches into a different genre, but finally there is enough coherence to hold the thing together.

If you've never seen a Kramer film (as I hadn't), you probably owe it to yourself to take a look. Neither Milestones nor Ice is available for rental via Netflix or Blockbuster, so maybe sharing a purchase with a group of like-minded film fans will work for you. (And if the film is available via streaming, I don't know where. Mubi maybe? Hold on: I just checked, and, yes -- Mubi's got both Milestones and Ice!) Available for sale via Icarus Films, the films come in a two-for-one package-deal from their distributor, or, of course, you can order the DVD from that behemoth Amazon.

Another knockout from Todd Solondz: LIFE DURING WARTIME opens via IFC

Not a drama, exactly, nor a comedy (though it features some of the funniest stuff seen on-screen this year), nor a meditation (it is meditative, however), nor a romance (though it does center on couples and coupling), nor a ghost story (though we do see dead people), Todd Solondz's LIFE DURING WARTIME is none of this and all of it.  The one thing I can say for certain that it is not is a musical. And yet I loved the musical score and choice of songs. No one else comes close to making movies like Mr. Solondz (shown below), and thank god for that because, really, how much more of this sadness and pain could we take -- unless it were to come leavened by dark hilarity, as it is here and in every other of the five Solondz films.

The first time I saw this latest outing (at last year's New York Film Festival: My earlier post is here), I marveled at it. Seeing it again this week, I am even more impressed.  I also recognized themes from the filmmaker's earlier Happiness, but not the characters. (Trust
Movies is not good at remembering characters' names, particularly from a film seen well over a decade ago.) Turns out they're the same bunch, though the cast is entirely new -- and every bit as good as the former group.

Solondz's particular gift is for showing us ourselves as we try mightily to adapt our lives to hypocrisy and denial -- and still soldier on successfully.  This is impossible, of course.  But what glum fun we having trying. (And then have even more fun, as we watch ourselves on screen.)  The large extended family shown here is in the process of imploding, thanks in part to the women's poor choice of men.  The men are sad beings, unable not to do wrong, and us usual, it's the children who suffer most -- in this case the daughter on far too many drugs far too soon, and the son, increasingly locked into his mother's neurosis (and the hiding of his dad's socio-pathology) but stuggling to understand before he drowns in it all.

Does this sound dank and dismal?  Sure.  And not being Mr. Solondz, I can't begin to explain how hilarious many of the goings-on actually are.  These laughs are not cheap, by the way.  They come from a deep sense of caring for all the characters -- which is the filmmaker's ace in the hole and why you'll never mistake a Solondz movie for anyone else's.

That cast, as I mentioned earlier, is impeccable. Ireland's Ciarán Hinds and Scotland's Shirley Henderson (above, right, and further above, left) make marvellous Americans, and Ally Sheedy (at right, two photos up) takes a cold, nasty role and infuses it with humor and life. Charlotte Rampling (shown at bottom) has a scene as good as anything she's ever done (and how good is that?!), with Paul Reubens (above, left), Allison Janney, Michael Lerner (below, left) and Michael K. Williams also doing splendid work (truly, there's not a false moment from anyone in the entire cast). As the boy in the center of it all, Dylan Riley Snyder (below, right) is particularly memorable.

As Solondz has so far made a film only every five years, Life During Wartime may be it for awhile. Thanks are due IFC Films for picking this one up for theatrical release, starting Friday, July 23, in NYC at the IFC Center and simultaneously available On-Demand. Click here to find out how to avail yourself of the latter option.

Images above are from the film itself, except that of 

Mr. Solodnz, copyright and courtesy of Richard Phibbs.