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Information

Year
1981
Runtime
65 min.
Director
Agnès Varda
Genre
Drama
Rating *
7.2
Votes *
64
Checks
290
Favs
15
Dislikes
0
Favs/checks
5.2% (1:19)
Favs/dislikes
15:0
* View IMDb information

Top comments

  1. Thorkell's avatar

    Thorkell

    This has to be one of the most underrated film in the history of cinema and for sure among the best films to come out of the 80s.

    Documenteur starts where Agnès Varda's Mur Murs ends, but they have very little in common and do not need to be seen together.

    Mur Murs is all about the external life of people. What we put on the outside of your walls. Documenteur is about our internal life, what we hide.

    The title may suggest that it is a documentary but it is not. It is filmed in a documentary style, very much like Abbas Kiarostami did in his Koker trilogy. It is also inspired by her own life and Agnès Varda even uses her own son and her own editor (Sabine Mamou) to play the roles of Varda's assistance (but in reality both are a stand in for Agnès Varda and her own son). In one scene Sabine Mamou reads the narration for Mur Murs and when it is played back, we hear the voice of Varda. Sabine Mamou asks if this is really her voice and is told that we usually don't recognise our own voice. Agnès Varda was making a film about her own life but did not realise before much later that she had made a self biographic film. She did not recognise her own voice. Art imitates life.

    This is a hauntingly beautiful film. Poetic, ambivalent, melancholic and meditative. It takes place in LA and a lot of the shots are at the shore. The west was a symbol of hope. But what happens when you can't go any farther west? When you are at the shore and you have lost hope, you are full of desires you can't fulfill, your life is fleeting way and you feel like you are drifting farther and farther from where you want to be.

    There is almost no story here. The film focuses on emotions, a state of mind. If you like atmospheric and poetic films then this masterpiece is your cup of tea.

    Watch it and spread the good news. This film needs to be seen!
    10 years 4 months ago
  2. Siskoid's avatar

    Siskoid

    Mur Murs's companion piece, Documenteur, expands on the lives of a couple characters we briefly see in the documentary, but the title means Docu-Liar, and though it's very much a slice of life shot with non-actors all around, it makes us ask whether elements of the previous film were staged (and of course they were, the way Varda puts people into spaces is part of the visual interest). In Documenteur, we follow a newly divorced single mom try to get her life in order and it's as real and touching as anything Varda's done. The young son, played by the director's own, is great too. I myself was raised by a struggling divorced single mother and I see a lot of her in this, in particular the things she would never have told us until we were adults. Like the murals of the first film which only cameo in this one, it's all about a secret history. From the collective to the singular. 3 years ago
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In 1 official list

  1. This movie ranks #170 in The Criterion Collection's Eclipse Series
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