Jacquot de Nantes

A young experimental film enthusiast concentrates on vivid storytelling, having instantaneously been mesmerized by the first live puppet show he went to see.

Growing up in Nantes in France with loving parents in a lively neighbourhood, his imagination roamed far and wide while often focused on the cinema.

Family life embraced the trades since his father owned a bustling garage, and wanted his son to become a mechanic and learn his catechism and keep things real.

Little Jacquot hesitantly obliged since he wasn't as rebellious as some, but still worked on creative independent films alone at night in their humble attic.

His mother and father had to admit that he had real talent when he showcased his films, every meticulous minuscule detail having been delicately crafted.

World War II breaks out and the family is briefly torn apart, dad working in a shell-factory by day, the children moving to the countryside at times.

But Jacquot never stops creating nor watching films with heartfelt awe.

Eventually directing agile tales. 

As part of the French New Wave.

Jacquot de Nantes proceeds with loving candour as it romantically illustrates its subject, dynamically directed by Jacque's wife the incredibly talented Agnès Varda.

She carefully links his active childhood with laidback material from his films, first imagining how the moments might have taken place before showing them depicted on the silver screen. 

Jacques Démy himself also comments to add more depth to the bold filmography, his poignant insights generating layers of intricate exuberant narrative detail.

Captivating to see a sincere exhibition of a thoughtful artist and his breathtaking work, lovingly shot by another auteur who genuinely loved him with innocent tenderness.

I've never seen one of his films which is a shortcoming I'll have to remedy. 

Such knowledge.

Such wild inspiration. 

Peacefully blossoming.

Limitless and free.

Nausicaa

 * Glad I'm not lining up month after month of gruelling resistance themed films. Did manage to find this one by accident on Saturday evening though (I was searching for an Agnès Varda film, but didn't think it would be fascist related). 

In 1967, a harsh military dictatorship suddenly took control of Greece, where it ruled for 7 inauspicious years as people everywhere around them mobilized. 

Imaginative French filmmaker Agnès Varda made the film Nausicaa to commend Greek exiles, who were forced to flee the degenerate lies and systematic torture of the fascist regime. 

Finding themselves in France they fortunately found international networks, and were able to defend democratic freedoms with receptive audiences worldwide.

Unfortunately, as her film was being put together insensitive authorities seized most of what had been produced, and never explained to her why they were taking it, it's thought that the material was subsequently destroyed.

But the Royal Belgian Cinémathèque kept one copy and delicately preserved it, which is now available on The Criterion Channel for those seeking informative and creative texts.

It interviews artists and journalists as they explain the troubles they had with the army, and attempt to find work and lodging in France while reflecting on Greek politics.

The call for widespread resistance took time to find an active audience, but eventually championed the compassionate rights of people who prefer not to join the military.

Nausicaa is also quite experimental it eclectically presents different storytelling styles, loosely adorning one Greek citizen's experiences as he meets a woman whose daughter's half Greek (I believe the daughter is supposed to be Varda).

The ways in which state media outlets mask the truth in order to offer unrealistic pictures of sociopolitical dilemmas are showcased, along with investigations into the general political awareness of France at the time (note how the left recently still dealt a crippling blow to the French right), and thoughtful looks at Greece's culture in the '60s.

Please don't equate my new style of poem with what Nausicaa calls "Medieval Obscurantism". I thought I was writing absurd catchy surrealist poems that are like puzzles, I'm not deliberately trying to sound difficult. 

Difficult to know what parts of the film would have been kept or altered or augmented if it had moved forward, but there's still enough left in this working draft to generate more comment than most of what's out there.

A cool look at the French New Wave applied to television.

The dictatorship didn't last long.

Varda is worth checking out.

Loin du Vietnam (Far from Vietnam)

You wonder why or how it ever seemed so significant, how a tiny jungle country in southeast Asia could have warranted a prolonged bloodthirsty conflict.

With thousands dying in a hostile land uniformly united to defend their realm, ideology butchered with extreme malignancy to attempt to settle a political rampage.

Loin du Vietnam (Far from Vietnam) packs a ferocious punch as it analyzes the Vietnam War, presenting multiple viewpoints from opposing sides furiously hellbent on polemical destruction.

But I don't see a synthesis here it seems plain and clear the resistance was right, or that those challenging the bellicose authorities were in virtuous possession of infallible conviction.

How could you ever convince someone of ideological agency by aggressively bombing them day and night?, the documentary capturing the ruthless madness that viciously encouraged rampant death and devastation.

Violently disseminating your message pestiferously begets similar responses, an eye for an eye the message still the same, many people will fight if you use violence to persuade them.

And what do you win if you radically subdue them, besides ubiquitous engrained somnambulism, the remarkable thrill of having thoroughly convinced someone worth billions more and much less expensive.

If you proceed with friendship or genuine curiosity to lay the foundations for lucrative trade, diplomatically distilling mutually beneficial matrices things generally improve while many prosper.

Peaceful relations hopefully nurture networks which convivially matriculate as goals are met, infrastructure enabled with longitudinal lattice to efficiently enliven fortuitous fable.

People do often seem to be at odds or indeed rather grumpy from time to time, but cultures which embrace feminine counsel seem to succeed with more byzantine balance.

Like I've said before, a solid mix of the genders has led to fun working experiences, the desire to productively intermingle while taking account of multifaceted interrelations, resonantly producing cohesive outputs, negotiating novelty and tradition.

I was sad to hear Jean-Luc Godard passed this year, he's most certainly one of my favourite directors (he's one of 7 directors who made Loin du Vietnam).

I enjoyed so many of his unique films in my youth.

I'm curious to know where he ended up?! 🤔

*Note: some monogender environments can be fun too, but they're definitely more well-rounded or versatile if there's a mix. 

La Pointe-Courte

The opening image suggests mystery as the camera cryptically focuses on a piece of wood, whose grains resemble an ancient desert or plump and nimble whale baleen.

Setting the stage for stark alternatives non-traditional narrative endeavour, unique insights into a livelihood rarely examined with cinematic depth.

A rural village roughly perseveres along France's Atlantic coast, inhabitants making their living from age old oceanic abundance.

But pollution endangers their catch as prohibitions prove prescriptive, and regulations delineate boundaries less expansive than haughty seas.

A nostalgic husband fervently awaits the return of his cherished wife, who's never visited his wild hometown, far away from the streets of Paris.

An older generation contemplates youth with resigned historical parallels, assertive in its grand paternalism yet sympathetic to romantic sage.

Everyone knows each other and even the police cut friends some slack, the maintenance of local economies upheld with mischievous tradition.

It's rare to come across a film that regards impoverished struggles with such poetic enriched decency. 

There's love, romance, imagination, a feisty collective willing resolve, with strength and dignity obstructing forlorn incapacitating distraught helplessness.

When you see the impacts pollution can have on the health of vital resources, it's surprising climate change isn't severely critiqued by effected local populations. 

Things can change so slowly that it seems like everything's always been the same, but the scientific forecast is most distressing as it applies to besieged nature.

Some areas are hit worse than others but there's no doubt everything's connected, and careful prudent planning nurtures paramount resiliency.

Nice to see such an honest couple freely sharing thoughts and feelings, through the art of amorous persuasion delicately timed revealed conceding.

It's like Agnès Varda understood her community from a humanistic stance, and sought to share its visceral daring through undulating vicissitudes.

She clearly loves the environment as La Pointe-Courte's cinematography illustrates (Louis Soulanes, Paul Soulignac, Louis Stein), the patient caring reticent transitions evocative timeless echoes. 

When things seem somewhat downcast the town erupts in celebration.

Much more gentle than Truffaut or Godard.

Still abounding with novel wonder.  

Les Créatures

Secluded cerebral calisthenic splotched stratagem, a married writer intuitively interacts, unfamiliar with the customs of his new home, curious yet shy emboldened substantiated combustion.

He can speak with animals and on occasion visits the forest, his accent often positively received, through rampant scamper and modest scuttle, the conversation like plush evergreen.

Intrigue abounds within the village as a doctor seeks extramarital counsel, his advisor's sister stopping by for a rest, falling for a spry electrician. 

Yet something sinister abides shut in having created a grotesque machine, which can manipulate latent emotion and compromise intransigent will.

Citizens bustle converse galavant unaware of diabolical schemes, the transformation of hesitant trusts into quizzical plights unforeseen. 

The writer confronts him and finds himself challenged to a binding preponderant duel, the outcome of which could disrupt his smooth flowing consummate conjugal cool.

Thus impulses cynical and communal dreamily contract bewitched altercation, lighthearted delegates blind unsuspecting of desire lacking canned sublimation.

One of the strangest films I've seen or at least one whose climax I didn't see coming, its origins rather traditional apart from introductory jocose accelerations. 

Burgeoning sci-fi ambiently acquired through greenhouse craft embowering predicaments, as if the emergence of tactile technologies would wildly disturb inveterate calm.

Unless alternative goals could be applied to their grand distribution, less shocking age old applications of wholesome bittersweet drowsy hitched life.

Agnès Varda seems to have been wary of advancing technologies, as suggested by motorboats introduced at La Pointe-Courte's end, and the imposing machine haunting Les Créatures. 

She clearly loves the environment as demonstrated by multiple shots in both films, crabs freely represented, interspecies communication romanticized in the latter.

From a contemporary perspective, the machine could represent The Social Dilemma's criticisms of social media, something emphatically required to reinvest it with progress, to reimagine a less hostile life.

A wonderful film literary imagination enriched through uncanny romance.

Essential pioneering sci-fi.

One heck-of-a clever bucolic.  

Sans toit ni loi (Vagabond)

Drifting through the French countryside, Mona Bergeron (Sandrine Bonnaire) moves from place to place in search of a comfortable semantic translation. Unhappy working as a secretary, she sets out in search of a boss or a situation to whom/which she can easily relate. Refusing to accept anything else, dire circumstances occasionally present themselves to which she must spontaneously adjust. The acceptance of such adjustments produces a feisty tranquillity as she discovers sundry existential qualifiers from which she creates an ontological work in progress.

Agnès Varda presents Mona's story through a series of flashbacks from the final days of her life. She encounters a colourful cast of characters who offer advice and opportunities while reflecting on that/those presented by her bohemian lifestyle. A random cross-section of French culture is thereby curiously and interrogatively investigated as particularized observations are freely illuminated. Sans toit ni loi (Vagabond) lets its narrative subjectively moralize from multidimensional points of view without offering direct overarching evaluations.

The highs and lows of a transient lifestyle are mediated within as Mona consistently transforms from subject to object while remaining committed to her chosen path.

The film itself is in constant motion as ideas, constructs, and conceptions are tethered, liberated, confined, and released.