Just a Game?

By Stuart Klawans

This article appeared in the July 13, 2009 edition of The Nation.

June 24, 2009

Agn&egrave;s Varda in <i>The Beaches of Agn&egrave;s</i> CINEMA GUILD

CINEMA GUILD
Agnès Varda in The Beaches of Agnès

The things that you lose in the course of a long life, and the things you might somehow hold on to, are the stuff of Agnès Varda's latest essay film--"stuff" being a clunky word to apply where this innately elegant artist is concerned but also inescapable, since she likens her method in this film to dumping the contents of a purse.

Out tumble lint, valuables, makeup, mementos, business receipts, scraps of notepaper and pieces of identification, official and otherwise. Some of this accumulation, such as the family snapshots, might belong to any grandmother, as I think Varda would admit. Having dedicated a significant part of her work to making common cause with other women, she readily counts herself among their company. That said, though, she knows her career within this collectivity has been singular, and so are most of the odds and ends she pours out before the viewer. Founding member and sole woman of the French New Wave, witness to radical social movements and sometimes their abettor, entrepreneur, traveler, friend to a long list of artistic geniuses, she in effect brings out of her purse more than fifty years' worth of assorted and idiosyncratic film clips, portrait photographs and snatches of music, not to mention some recently gathered views of places she's known.

"A puzzle," she calls her life's materials as she sorts and arranges them, "with a hole in the center." Or, to switch to the metaphor of her new film's title, the assemblage she makes looks like a meeting place of the elements, continually forming and slipping away: The Beaches of Agnès.

Subscriber Login

4 ISSUES FREE

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

.

About Stuart Klawans

The Nation's film critic Stuart Klawans is author of the books Film Follies: The Cinema Out of Order (a finalist for the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Awards) and Left in the Dark: Film Reviews and Essays, 1988-2001. His film criticism and reviews for The Nation won the 2007 National Magazine Award. When not on deadline for The Nation, he contributes articles to the New York Times and other publications. more...
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Blogs

» Editor's Cut

Around the Nation | The week we went Rouge. Plus, Moyers on Afghanistan.
Katrina vanden Heuvel
29 Comments

» The Beat

Health Care Bill Advances, as Harry Reid Trumps Sarah Palin | The death panelist-in-chief rallied her followers to "KILL THE BILL." But 60 senators decided to follow the real leader.
John Nichols
42 Comments

» The Notion

Palin as the Church Lady | Going Rogue book tour brings passive-aggressive rightwing Christianity to the fore.
Leslie Savan
137 Comments

» Altercation

Slacker Friday | The "Second Amendment" sale; the raving paranoids of the right.
Eric Alterman

» The Dreyfuss Report

Chongqing: Socialism in One City | China is managing the most important event in the world: the urbanization of half a billion people. Fast.
Robert Dreyfuss
211 Comments

» Act Now!

Toward Copenhagen | A guide to joining the movement against climate change.
Peter Rothberg
73 Comments