Faces Places (Visages, villages)
Directed by Agnès Varda & JR
France | 2017 | Hybrid Doc | 89 min | French w/English subtitles
Film Source: Cohen Media Group
Awards/premier festivals: Cannes
Sponsors: Todd Lockwood
* Opening Night film *
Agnès Varda has been making movies for more than 60 years. Faces Places is among the 89-year-old director’s very best. A hybrid documentary that’s more doc than narrative, Faces Places follows Varda and visual artist JR as they travel the French countryside seeking subjects for JR’s large-format outdoor photographic art installations. While the film’s off-the-cuff road-movie format humorously downplays its philosophical musings about the state of the working-class French population, its hybrid aesthetic speaks to the power of cinema as a unifier of multiple art forms. The 34-year-old JR, who’s never seen without his trademark dark sunglasses, bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Jean-Luc Godard, providing an ironic link to Varda’s youthful work as one of the seminal figures of the French New Wave. If Faces Places proves to be Varda’s cinematic swan song, she’ll go out with a masterful bang. ~LB
