The Complete Films of Agnès Varda Blu-ray delivers great video and solid audio in this exceptional Blu-ray release
See individual titles for their synopses.
For more about The Complete Films of Agnès Varda and the The Complete Films of Agnès Varda Blu-ray release, see the The Complete Films of Agnès Varda Blu-ray Review published by Jeffrey Kauffman on July 31, 2020 where this Blu-ray release scored 4.5 out of 5.
Note: In a set this immense that features so many films, the scores above are not even really "averages", but more of my general
impression of the
entire set. Therefore, even though I've scored some of the films as low as 3.0, I'm giving the overall set a 5.0, simply because it's such an
incredible overview of Varda's films. I do highly recommend taking the time to read at least some of the individual reviews, linked below, to get a
firmer idea of how I feel about each individual title.
In the wake (figurative or otherwise) of Agnès Varda's death last year at the age of 90, quite a bit has rightfully been written about this iconic force
in
both
French and global cinema. Varda's output includes well over fifty credits as a director (including some television entries as detailed by the
IMDb), and aside from listing some of her better known triumphs,
many obituaries and/or eulogies about Varda mentioned any number of other biographical data points, including her rather unique position as a
woman in France's nouvelle vague movement, her own feminism which was featured none too subtly in some of her films, and her
frequently provocative experimental style. But you know what one of the things that kind of fascinates me personally most about Varda? That she
was married for 28 years to Jacques Demy, from 1962 until Demy's death in 1990. That Varda, often a purveyor of verité infused
"realism",
whether that be in outright documentaries or at least ostensibly more "fictional" outings, and Demy, a director whose candy colored, dreamlike and
at least relatively "Hollywoodized" musicals with
Michel Legrand brought a new luster and gloss to French cinema, managed to make a marital go of it for so long is certainly testament to the
maxim
that "opposites attract", even if those oppositional forces in this instance played out at least in part in terms of what kinds of films the two were
often
best remembered for. If Varda's long marriage to Demy is more than enough reason to celebrate her personal life, her professional life is
beautifully
feted in this rather astounding new set from Criterion, which aggregates an amazing 39 films (albeit some running as short as a few minutes) to
provide what is arguably one of the most insightful
overviews of Varda's cinematic oeuvre. Perhaps unavoidably, but also undeniably movingly, these personal and professional sides of
Varda
merge in at least some of the films in this set, including The
Young
Girls Turn 25, The World of Jacques
Demy, Jacquot de Nantes, and The Beaches of Agnès.
For reviews of the films in this set, please click on the following links:
Criterion only sent check discs for purposes of these reviews, so I'm unable to authoritatively cover any non disc supplements, though Criterion's
website shows a booklet that comes with this release. All on disc supplements are detailed in the appropriate reviews.
Agnès Varda is one of the most distinctive figures to emerge from French cinema, and this immense set from Criterion is a fitting tribute to her
amazingly diverse oeuvre. Not every film here is a complete success, but the sheer volume of output is rather formidable, and the variety of
subjects and styles Varda explores is often breathtaking. Technical merits are generally solid, though the lossy audio on many of the shorts is
something of a disappointment. The on disc supplements are excellent. Highly recommended.
Use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to agree or disagree that the title is similar to . You can also suggest completely new similar titles to in the search box below.
The Criterion Collection has announced its August batch of Blu-ray releases. They are:
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Toni (1935), and Town Bloody Hall (1979). Earlier this week, the boutique label also announced that ...
The Criterion Collection has announced that it will release on Blu-ray The Complete Films of Agnès Varda. The fifteen-disc box set will be available for purchase on August 11.