<Faces Places> is essentially a documentary about a road trip between two fellow artists, with Agnes Varda and JR and recording their creating process. Different from the general documentary, those two creators did not stand behind the scene, instead they used their dialogues and experience to connect the whole set of documentary in front of the scene in the film, and this speciality is the most attractive thing to me. Agnes Varda has thousands of ways to appear in her different documentaries, however in here I see the her true participation in a creating process, and also her concern for society and women.
For the film, I especially love the whimsical voiceover in which Varda and JR imagine all the places they might have met, this voiceover is not only filled in the narrative part of the documentary, but also make it more heartwarming and endearing. Moreover, in this film they visited a lot of French villages, they were sometimes beautiful, sometimes meaningful, sometimes with sadness, every locations and souls is showed in the most authentic way in both surface and inner, and this presents Varda’s view of the documentary — “what more can be seen?” rather than “what happens next?”
There are two scenes make me feel touched. In the film Varda met a group of goats without horns because the priest pulled out the goat horns at an early age in order to avoid goat fights. She did not agree with this way. After visiting the horned goats of another ranch, she decided to create an image of a horned goat and put it on the pasture to make this situation known to the world in her film. I think this is her own way to show her concern for the society. Also the another scene at the male-dominated port terminal, Varda invited three wives of workers who has never been to port terminal to shoot, and then their images were posted on stacked containers at the port to highlight the importance and status of women. Varda as a female filmmaker, I can see her efforts in this film to promote women’s power and feminism, and this made her work more meaningful to the world.
<Faces Places> is the latest and the last work from Agnes Varda, her uniqe shooting style and film philosophy have not changed for years. She insists on seeing the world with her own ways and as an artist and feminist using her works to infect the world. I believe this is the reason why she is so great in my heart.