Les dites cariatides (1984)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Agnès Varda

Writers:

Charles Baudelaire (poems)
Agnès Varda (writer)

Genre:

Documentary | Short

Cast

Agnès Varda

...

La récitante / voix (voice)

Also Known As:

The So-called Caryatids (International: English title)

Runtime:

12 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

57 rue Turbigo, Paris 3, Paris, France

Company:

Ciné Tamaris

Trivia:

Visa d'exploitation en France #58865.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Les dites cariatides bis (2005) (V)

Neo-classical statues, Paris and Baudelaire - what more could you want?

Commissioned by French television, this is a short documentary on the neo-classical statues found throughout Paris, predominantly on the walls of buildings, holding up windows, roofs etc. (the title translates as 'the so-called Caryatides'). As one might expect from Varda, the film is strongly feminist, as she draws out wider symbolic and social implications from these images of women holding up huge weights, both then and now, but it is playfully so. The film becomes much sadder when she talks about Baudelaire, whose Paris these ladies grace; his poetry, success, notoriety; his subsequent physical decline, loss of voice and death. These statues are now so familiar that they are barely noticed, but in mapping the mental geography of a city, foreign viewers will be ravished by this Rameau-soundtracked exploration of a forgotten Paris.