"If you opened people up, you would find landscapes; if you opened me up, you would find beaches." Agnès Varda

"Cleo from 5 to 7" (1961) by Agnès Varda

This past weekend was the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, NC. Last year I saw "Man on Wire" at Full Frame which then went on to wide release and to win an Oscar for best documentary. However, at the time, I knew nothing of the movie and, though I found it to be such a profoundly beautiful and moving film, what made it even more so was that I went on a whim to see it. I stumbled upon it with no expectation and discovered one of my favorite films.

This year I saw "The Beaches of Agnès" by French filmmaker / photographer / conceptual artist Agnès Varda who tells the story of her life as (her words): "a kaleidoscope, a collage, a fantasy."
And not only was it such a tender and compelling story about an 80 year old woman looking back at her fascinating life, but to see her create and be creating, here, in this film, was inspiring.

Some of my favorite images include: a pair of grown men pushing a cart loaded down with a projector and screen projecting a film which starred their father (a man they only remember in photos), the director in a giant blue whale, the director cleaning herself "like a cat" before eating a giant "American breakfast" of pancakes the size of her face, the use of mirrors, of nets. And wouldn't it be fun to go through her film catalogue backwards, as a type of homage to the scenes of Varga's own physical representation of remembering? The stepping backwards - away from the camera, carefully and slowly - such a lovely, lovely image.