'Faces Places': A New Wave Filmmaker And A Mural Artist Tear Through France
What a joy it is to have a movie like this in our broken lives right now. Faces Places is the latest celebration of the creative spirit from Agnès Varda, who made her first film in 1954 and is now 89, with no signs of slowing down. Why should she? Films give her vitality, and she returns the favor to the medium.
When Varda started her career as a key director and , she helped redefine the public perception of films as more personal and idiosyncratic; subservient to the whims of their makers, instead of merely entertainment vessels. But if the artists once set out to make the world their plaything, Varda now allows the world to play with her. In her latest, she travels across rural France with the street artist JR, who serves as co-director and drives a truck that's also a giant photo booth. The pair visit beaches and factory towns and semi-abandoned villages, turning everyday folks on the street into collaborators on a public art project: snapping photos of faces and putting them on places. "To ask people if we can express our imaginations on their turf," as she puts it.
