Documenteur

Sabine Mamou is a writer living with her son in Los Angeles.

When Agnès Varda makes a movie, she has my respectful attention, but this movie, in which Mlle Mamou, usually her editor, plays the role, with Mlle Varda's son, Matthieu Demy as her son, looks to be fairly unengaging. There's a stream of consciousness narration near the beginning, in which words and phrases are jumbled together, but that gradually disappears, until at the end the two of them sit, looking blankly at a mariachi band. Is the point to not to try to ascribe meaning, but accept the world as it is, or is that a sign of growing despair? I cannot tell. Perhaps Mlle Varda wanted to sit on the knife's edge between the two positions. If so, it's an uncomfortable position.

Out of the few films that I've seen from the iconic French New Wave director Agnes Varda, "Documenteur" is probably the one that I found to be her greatest accomplishment. There's something about it's strange, cold atmosphere that really stuck with me, and the film is so well made that I'm surprised how little people ever discuss it. If it were a bit more popular, I bet "Documenteur" would be analyzed countless times and get as much praise as more well known Varda films (like "Cleo from 5 to 7")

The film mixes a realistic documentary-like style with a strange, borderline surreal atmosphere, creating a bizarre and experimental treat that made me feel oddly moved and, in one way or the other, kind of uncomfortable. It basically tells the story of a woman and her son living in Los Angeles, and that's really it. But it is made in such a way that it feels like its actually something much more than that. It is a film that is about emotions as much as it is about a mother son relationship.

It's also very well made, from the lovely camera movements, various experimental editing techniques, and brilliant use of voice-over, it truly is a mystical experience.

This has to be one of the most underrated film in the history of cinema and for sure among the best films to come out of the 80s.

Documenteur starts where Agnès Varda's Mur Murs ends, but they have very little in common and do not need to be seen together.

Mur Murs is all about the external life of people. What we put on the outside of your walls. Documenteur is about our internal life, what we hide.

The title may suggest that it is a documentary but it is not. It is filmed in a documentary style, very much like Abbas Kiarostami did in his Koker trilogy. It is also inspired by her own life and Agnès Varda even uses her own son and her own editor (Sabine Mamou) to play the roles of Varda's assistance (but in reality both are a stand in for Agnès Varda and her own son). In one scene Sabine Mamou reads the narration for Mur Murs and when it is played back, we hear the voice of Varda. Sabine Mamou asks if this is really her voice and is told that we usually don't recognize our own voice. Agnès Varda was making a film about her own life but did not realize before much later that she had made a self biographic film. She did not recognize her own voice. Art imitates life.

This is a hauntingly beautiful film. Poetic, ambivalent, melancholic and meditative. It takes place in LA and a lot of the shots are at the shore. The west was a symbol of hope. But what happens when you can't go any farther west? When you are at the shore and you have lost hope, you are full of desires you can't fulfill, your life is fleeting way and you feel like you are drifting farther and farther from where you want to be.

There is almost no story here. The film focuses on emotions, a state of mind. If you like atmospheric and poetic films then this masterpiece is your cup of tea. Watch it and spread the good news. This film needs to be seen!

I see where the reviews below are almost equally divided between Varda lovers and haters. So let me perversely fall somewhere in the middle with perhaps a slight predilection toward the adoration side of the spectrum.

God knows the haters' case is easy to make. Exhibit A is the bad acting from the subsidiary members of the cast. I mean the gal who plays the waitress friend of the mom and the guy who plays her ex are so stiff and without nuance in their line deliveries it is almost as if Varda directed them to be crappy. And exhibit B is that pseudo profound narration by the mom which Varda wisely soft peddles about halfway through, as if she realizes it's boring as hell to listen to.

But, hey, I lived in pre gentrified Venice at about the time this thing was made and it really took me back, so I'm pre disposed to like it. And as lousy as the co stars were the two leads, played by Varda's kid Matthieu Demy and especially Sabine Mamou, were excellent. And finally, and most importantly, I was taken by the film's understated, but stronger for that, message of indomitability in the face of adversity. Quite a stark contrast with the working single mom protagionist of "Jeanne Dielman", directed by the current darling of the avant garde, Chantal Akerman, whose instinct, first last and always, is to give up.

Give it a B minus.

DOCUMENTEUR is a wonderful little French movie shot in Southern California. It tells a small, personal story about a young single mother trying to raise her son and make ends meet in a new, unfamiliar country.

It's very different than most things I've seen in movies but very much like real life. It is very good. It feels like a documentary and was probably shot like one. It was probably shot without a script, focusing on small details and things like that. It has that feel to it. For those reasons I know a lot of people will not like this movie. But for those very same reasons it will appeal to others. Recommend.