The Beaches of Agnès (2008)
"Les plages d'Agnès" (original title)

Agnès Varda explores her memories, mostly chronologically, with photographs, film clips, interviews, reenactments, and droll, playful contemporary scenes of her narrating her story.

Director:

Agnès Varda

Writer:

Agnès Varda

Stars:

Agnès Varda, André Lubrano, Blaise Fournier

7 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Agnès Varda	...	Herself
André Lubrano	...	Himself
Blaise Fournier	...	Himself
Vincent Fournier	...	Himself
Andrée Vilar	...	Herself
Stéphane Vilar	...	Himself
Christophe Vilar	...	Himself
Rosalie Varda	...	Herself
Mathieu Demy	...	Himself
Christophe Vallaux	...	Himself
Mireille Henrio	...	Herself
Didier Rouget	...	Himself
Anne-Laure Manceau	...	Agnès Varda jeune
Gérard Ayres	...	Himself (as Gerry Ayres)
Jim McBride	...	Himself

Storyline

At nearly 80, Agnès Varda explores her memory - growing up in Belgium, living in Sète, Paris, and Noirmoutier, discovering photography, making a film, being part of the New Wave, raising children with Jacques Demy, losing him, and growing old. She explores her memory using photographs, film clips, home movies, contemporary interviews, and set pieces she designs to capture a feeling, a time, or a frame. Shining through each scene are her impish charm, inventiveness, and natural empathy. How do people grow old, how does loss stay with them, can they remain creative, and what do they remember? Memory, she says, is like a swarm of confused flies. She envisions hers for us.

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Plot Keywords:

memory | interview | photograph | film clip | reenactment | 

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Genres:

Documentary | Biography

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site (English) Official site [jp]

Country:

France

Language:

French English

Release Date:

17 December 2008 (France)

Also Known As:

The Beaches of Agnès

Filming Locations:

Ancienne Ecole Nationale de Photographie et de Cinématographie, 85 Rue de Vaugirard, Paris 6, Paris, France

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$2,948 (USA) (7 August 2009)

Gross:

$239,711 (USA) (20 August 2010)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ciné Tamaris, arte France Cinéma, Canal+

Technical Specs

Runtime:

110 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

French visa # 118156.

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Connections

Edited into Film socialisme (2010)

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Soundtracks

"Supplique pour être enterré à la plage de Sète"
Composed, Written and Sung by Georges Brassens
Produced by Georges Meyerstein-Maigret
disques Phillips
(1966)

User Reviews

Brilliant documentary

Agnès Varda presented us in this autobiographical movie with her memories of a life devoted to the cinema and not only. She does that in powerful and beautiful images supported by a brilliant, witty and sensitive commentary. In this movie we can see references to several of some of the best Varda's films such as La Pointe Courte, Cléo de 5 à 7 and Le Bonheur, with images, and to some of the greatest and more important figures of French cinema such as her husband Jacques Demy to begin with and also Godard, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin and others. The cut is very intelligent and effective in visual terms combining the present and the past sometimes in simultaneous images with a special effect here and there. A masterpiece indeed.