The Beaches of Agnès

Hanging out with Jim Morrison on the set of Peau d’Âne. Breaking the cordon at pro-choice rallies with Delphine Seyrig. Hopping off to China to photograph the revolution on Chris Marker’s orders. Accidentally kick-starting the Nouvelle Vague. Persuading Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë to lend you a chunk of the Paris beaches. As this documentary self-portrait lovingly reveals, life has been a beach for Agnès Varda, who is still as sprightly at 80 as the pageboy-bobbed ingénue who took Cannes, and then the world, by storm with her era-defining Cléo From 5 To 7 in 1961.

Or should that be sprite-ly, given her love of cinema’s transformative magic? Varda zinged back into the cinematic consciousness with her 2000 documentary The Gleaners and I, in which she turned society’s detritus, both material and human, into a tender and vibrant meditation on ageing, kindness, cinema and memory as methods of recycling, which she explores more intimately in her new film. Here Varda recycles clips from her old movies to layer a dazzling history of post-war France, the New Wave, the revolutions of the 1960s, and her long love affair with Jacques Demy and with cinema.

Film and filmmakers never seem so inextricably bound as when Varda turns her white-shrouded back to the camera after talking about Demy’s death, elegantly marking her utter loss which is at once personal, and that of an era. Beaches is a joyous film but it also carries the survivor’s responsibility to remember. Surrounded by images she made during the early days of the legendary Avignon theatre festival, Varda weeps for dead friends and collaborators such as Philippe Noiret, even as she appraises the images with an aesthete’s eye.

Deep emotion and ravishing visuals are intertwined here, in contrast to Cléo’s zeitgeisty cool. Beaches is like a kaleidoscope turning through 50 years of cinema – turning Jane Birkin, for example, this way and that as Stan Laurel, Joan of Arc and a medieval beauty. Varda discovers a fiery, tender intelligence (reflecting her own) in her performers – whether Gérard Depardieu or the baker who lives on her street – and thus calls it forth in her audience.

It’s impossible not to open your heart to this film, whose director wanders around the Bienniale dressed as a heart-shaped potato. Bruised by grief, contemplating old age and alive to the new possibilities of youth culture and digital cinema, Varda draws the viewer into her circle of friends. Here among the jousters, fishermen, artists, protestors, performers and cats, it’s a beachy place to be.

Sophie Mayer

Anticipation:

Gleaners was a stunning return to form. Beaches promised similar treats and a glimpse into the lives of France’s first couple of film.

Enjoyment:

Every shot is a delight in this profound essay on death and ageing.

In Retrospect:

Thanks for the memories: as real and dreamlike as life itself.