In the late 1950s, an art film movement emerged in France, which rapidly took over the entire world with its fresh perspective of filmmaking. This movement turned into the ‘French New Wave Cinema’ movement. The New Wave is one of the most influential movements in the history of world cinema and Agnes Varda is considered its grandmother and mother. Agnes started her career as a photographer, who was soon captivated by the magic of moving images. When she was commissioned by a friend to shoot a fishing village he could not visit, it opened her up to the opportunities of the moving images and cinema. Using minimal portable equipment, a faster film stock and live sound, she dabbled in a style of filmmaking that soon became popular with new age filmmakers of the time like including Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol.
‘Agnes Varda’ is a short documentary by Director Mohammad Mohammadian. Mohammad pays tribute to Agnes Varda through this short documentary using a juxtaposition of still images and moving visuals from the life of Agnes. This is the very same style of filmmaking that Agnes cherished and used in her films and documentaries. Using some rare behind-the-scenes footage from her productions and snippets of her interviews, Mohammed brings alive the essence of Agnes’ work and a deeper insight into her personality. She talks about the forces that drive her work and of how she approaches her filmmaking. Mohammad also broaches the subject of her passion for art installations and photography and how the three remain interconnected in her approach to creating art. Just as in how Agnes brings together the real and its representation in her art, so too is the film a coming together of the work and the person behind the work.
As documentaries go, ‘Agnes Varda’ is short. But, just like the new age cinema of Agnes, the film breaks free from the shackles of structure and rules that define documentaries. This is a deserving tribute to the grandmother and mother of French New Wave Cinema.
