Ô saisons ô chateaux

After making her first feature "La Pointe-Courte", Agnès Varda was offered a commission to make a tourism short about the castles of the Loire Valley. She initially balked at the idea, but Alain Resnais convinced her to take the job saying that she would find her "own little music" in the subject matter.

Indeed she does. Although the film does take us through all the castles of the region in the order that they were built and provide their history, it also focuses on the gardens, the gardener, locals and many other things. It's an exquisitely shot and playful short, that I confess eventually wore out it's welcome a bit, but really only because I have very little interest in the actual castles.

This magnificent short film was made for the French Tourism Bureau, covering the castles of the Loire Valley. While it succeeds as a travelogue, it ends up as so much more.

Agnes Varda (the director) pays special attention to emphasize the beauty of the regions of her film with a very deep reverence. With the use of colourful panoramas, music and poetry, a special admiration is shown for artists and writers of earlier centuries including those outside France.

It is also special to see people out and about in an era of a time past. While they may have lived with less liberties than what we have today, they were also less burdened with modern plagues such as too much busyness including those that are self-imposed like smartphone obsessions. Travelogues of France will always be treasures. But for the modern viewer to experience an era of simpler enjoyments, it is a nostalgic pleasure that is almost indescribable. - dbamateurcritic

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT: Directing by Agnès Varda

This is my land:I was born in Chinon,which Varda depicts in lavish details:there,says Danièle Delorme,Joan of Arc met the King Charles the Seventh and she had him crowned in Reims.

Two actors comment the film:Antoine Bourseiller would be Antoine in Varda's best film "Cleo de 5 à 7" ;as for Daniele Delorme,she was a non-nouvelle vague actress ,therefore a good actress (Duvivier's "Voici le Temps des Assassins" is memorable.)

All that concerns the châteaux is excellent: the director follows history from the fortresses bold of the Middle-Ages (Chinon,which was destroyed by Richelieu,Langeais,Angers) to the exquisite châteaux de la Renaissance (Chenonceaux: the Dames' castle,Azay -Le -Rideau and its reflection in the river Indre,Cheverny and its gardens " A la Française" -nowadays there is even a Tin-tin museum for Herge's Moulinsart (=Marlinspike) was inspired by that castle),not forgetting the châteaux which came between such as Amboise and Blois (there's an excerpt of an old silent film "l'Assassinat du Duc de Guise" by André Calmettes and Charles Le Bergy (1908!))Varda ends her trip to the Loire in a mysterious castle which I have never visited.

All that does not concern the castles is eminently forgettable ,except if you are a nouvelle vague die-hard.I am not and proud of it.

Lovely poems.

Agnes Varda's first documentary short, on the chateaux of the Loire in France, was commissioned by the French Tourist Bureau; she used the commission

imaginatively to cut her teeth on documentary filmmaking. Only a third of the movie actually focuses on the chateaux. She gets interested in amateur

painters in the area, in gardeners and groundskeepers, on funny names of

small towns on the Loire, and on fashion models looking terrific against the

backdrop of the beautiful historic palaces. Varda was a successful

photographer when she took up filmmaking in 1954, and her visual aesthetic is exquisite in this film. Lots of wordplay in the voiceover commentary, and

playing/punning with words and images, will hopefully be translated and

available someday to English-speakers.