Reviews & Ratings for
O saisons, ô châteaux More at IMDbPro »

3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Witty documentary about the Chateaux of the Loire., 23 March 2004

Author: gorbman from United States

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.

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Ma région, 15 December 2007
Author: dbdumonteil

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.

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