Visages villages: Faces Places

Agnes Varda is a French director and photographer who was part the French New Wave Cinema.  JR is a French photographer and artist who is best known for street art: pasting large photographs onto buildings.  Agnes and JR team up to travel through villages in France.  They want to meet the people, take their pictures, and use the portraits to decorate old buildings.

Agnes is in her 80s and JR is in his 30s.  She has eye disease and sees the world blurry, while he always wears sunglasses and sees the world dark.  Their art and stories are different but both want to capture real moments in their art.


Prior to seeing this documentary, I was not familiar with the work of Agnes Varda or JR.  This documentary is about these two artists, who appreciate and enjoy each other and their art.  They travel around France to hear stories and take photographs.  It also has some quiet conversations between Varda and JR, where they talk about their past and future.  Both are slightly eccentric artists, with strong opinions... but the film is about their art and finding stories / truth.

Despite its short running time, the story moves at a slow and meandering pace, but it works here.  The film is in French, with subtitles.

This documentary was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2017 (Icarus won).

Visages villages: Faces Places (2017) 89 minutes
Director: JR & Agnes Varda
Starring: Agnes Varda
JR