Visages, villages

I LOVED the ceaseless pulse of creativity beating through this film. I LOVED the profound yet very slightly testy at times connection that both had with one another. I LOVED the people they touched and places they coloured. I LOVED almost the most the tribute paid to Jean-Luc Godard in the recreation of the famous 'race though the Louvre' scene from Bande à part. But I LOVED most of all one last opportunity to bear witness to Agnès Varda's indomitable spirit, which in turn left me feeling her great loss all over again. May she continue to rest in peace, and may JR remain popping up in his portable photo booth eternally, putting artistic joy in people's lives.

I can't say that I completely agree with the level of acclaim this film has gotten, but for the most part, it remains the type of documentary film I love- very observational, very experimental, and free-flowing in its expression of art, love, and other positive emotions. The film is edited very well, and although I didn't really connect with every single piece of story told on screen, I got to enjoy the film as a whole and everything it amounted to. For an acquired taste, but definitely recommended.

Prolific and delightful Agnès Varda teams up with the celebrated photographer J.R. on a road trip through rural France. JR, well known for his photography murals, this time mainly focuses on the images of rural French working class, but the conversations between the two artists, touch on other themes that are equally interesting to follow.

Faces Places is one of those disarmingly charming films that are hard not to like, but its main theme, maybe too easy to digest, can make you peckish for a bit more challenge by the time the film is over.

Cinema's greatest gleaner goes rambling with JR, one of France's most prominent street artists. Together they traverse the countryside in a mobile photo van capable of turning out large-scale photographs of the people they meet on their travels. It's a low-key and playful road trip for these sharp creatives as one 88 years-old and one 33 explore image-making, storytelling and aging. The effect is magical as farmers find their images on their barns, an old woman's face is inscribed on the wall of her condemned house, and giant women's images are assembled on shipping containers. This is art that connects directly and delightfully with ordinary people and their local environments. The gigantic portraits in living landscapes are ideally suited to the big screen. This is a highlight of the ADL FF

Agnes Varda is probably the least pretentious and most accessible of the French New Wave directors. Unlike Jean-Luc Godard, who as an artist seems to have calcified recently into his worst characteristics -- pretension, abstraction and aloofness -- Varda seems only to grow more warm and charming with age. And her companion, the street artist JR, with his sheer youthful exuberance and eternal sunglasses, is a terrific counterbalance to her wisdom and reflection. Opposites attract!

JR runs through the Louvre, pushing Varda in a wheelchair, leaping over sofas, in a recreation of the scene in Band of Outsiders when the actors broke the record of running through the famous museum. Varda, while gazing over a herd of sheep, ruminates how the young active lambs on the outside of the circle are the ones leading the flock. And always, the faces. And the places. JR and Varda travel throughout rural France, pasting large photo printouts of people on walls. They talk, they tease each other, they meet interesting people. This movie is a love letter to creativity and art and people. A railroad worker asks Varda why she let JR paste her toes on the side of a train's petrol tank, and the first thing she says is, "For fun."