Faces Places (2017)
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Faces Places Movie Review
Faces Places is a 2017 French documentary film directed by Agnes Varda. It is a very overrated film with limited appeal.
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“I’m feeling the sense of greatness.
I’m big, I’m strong“
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By limited appeal, I mean that the film is very much just for the artists and those interested in art. I am not particularly interested in art and thus I found this film unappealing and very dull. Certainly it has its moments and some portraits are beautiful, but I just wasn’t fully invested in these people or their job.
Agnes Varda directed the film really well and she is definitely a great presence felt throughout the film. She has a great personality and some of the things she had to say are great. JR is not as memorable as she is, but the relationship that develops between the two is fantastic and those two share some wonderful moments with each other and most of the film’s highlights concern the two of them chatting.
Faces Places (Visages Villages) promised me a look at the lives of rural people in France, but I didn’t really get that. I got that in its first act, but the rest of the film was more concerned with art which is unfortunate. I liked some of those experiments quite a bit, but for the most part the conversations intrigue me more personally and stories and those are rarely present in the second half.
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Some of the conversations and stories are very interesting and I liked some of the places and people the two visited, but mostly the movie deals with not particularly interesting people and half of the dialogue here wasn’t all that profound. The film is short, but it still felt long to me owing to its slow pacing and limited appeal. But I loved how it was shot as the cinematography is particularly strong and some scenes here are certainly very artistic which was the intention from the director all along.
Faces Places is very well shot, it has some interesting conversations as well as some fine experiments plus the relationship at the center of the film is great, but this movie nonetheless has a very limited appeal, it doesn’t have enough powerful conversations and overall I found it not particularly engaging.
