REVIEW: Les demoiselles de Rochefort [The Young Girls of Rochefort] [1967]

“The illusion of love is only love unseen” The fair is in town and love is in the air. Welcome to Rochefort—a little seaside navy town in France full of sumptuously bright colors and plenty of light-footed citizens ready to dance accompaniment for anyone willing to belt their hearts out in song. It’s a harbinger of unrequited love, lost love, and dreamers seeking an ideal they aren’t sure reality possesses. Tourists come and go, laughter is shared, and natives seem to always gravitate back after adventures abroad. The city beckoned…

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REVIEW: Les plages d’Agnès [The Beaches of Agnès] [2008]

“I feel pain everywhere” I think it should be a new rule that documentaries about filmmakers can only be made if the subject him/herself directs. How could you not want this enforced after watching Agnès Varda‘s Les plages d’Agnès [The Beaches of Agnès]? It surely helps that the Frenchwoman is candid, funny, and fearless when it comes to combining whatever she has into one cohesive whole. As she says: her movies are puzzles with many disparate pieces strewn about that find themselves coming together in the end. If some footage…

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