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It’s her 80th birthday so Agnes Varda makes a brilliant autobiographical film, playing with memories and the artefacts of time.
If you opened people up you would find landscapes,” says Varda in the opening voiceover. “If you opened me up, you would find beaches.” It’s her 80th birthday and Agnès Varda returns to the beaches of her childhood, including Sète, the fishing village that featured in La Pointe Courte.
“Weaving photography, archive footage, scenes from her own films and present-day sequences, Varda takes us on a memorable voyage through her life, during which she confronts the joy of creation and the pain of personal loss, death and aging. It is a singular trip played out against the stirring backdrop of the post-war explosion of cultural expression in France.
She knew everyone: the French New Wave set (she was married to Jacques Demy), the Black Panthers in California and even Jim Morrison, who would visit Agnes when he was in Paris. Idiosyncratic, engaging and deeply moving, The Beaches of Agnès is the autobiography of a magnificent artist and a woman of vital curiosity.” – BFI