Rent Faces Places (2017)

Captivating slice of film history - Faces Places review by CP Customer

A playful but profound record of a collaboration between veteran film director Agnes Varda and the photographer JR.

It feels as if the film has been put together from a random assortment of encounters in (mainly) rural France, though there is also a leisurely sense of a coherent journey.

The huge b/w images they produce are magnificent in themselves, and the accompanying interviews only add to the impact.

The interplay between Varda and JR is full of charm and teasing humour, with an interesting filmic twist at the end (no spoiler here!).

Beautifull, Compelling, Varda at her best - Faces Places review by RCO

Visages Villages (the title in French) sees 89 year old artist/film maker Agnes Varda collaborate with 34 year old photo-muralist JR.

Together they embark on a voyage around France creating stunning works/installations as they go and cross fertilising both ways between the generations of artists as they go.

This is their story, and a delight filled one it is.

Agnes died aged 90 in March 2019 and this film together with "The Beaches of Agnes" 2008 makes a fitting legacy for someone at the heart of the post WWII French New Wave Cinema in the 60s (and incidentally, as a friend, one of only 6 people to attend Jim Morrison's funeral). A life well lived, for sure the new generation epitomised by JR will carry the baton forward.

Face Value - Faces Places review by griggs

A filmmaker, a photographer, a van that prints giant photos, and a road trip round rural France does not sound like much of a pitch. Fair play to Faces Places for making it so easy to fall for.

Agnès Varda, well into her eighties by this point, and JR spend the film travelling through parts of France that feel half-forgotten, pasting huge portraits onto houses, barns and old industrial spaces. The lovely thing is that the people they meet never feel used as material. They are part of the joke, part of the image, part of the whole enterprise. JR’s studied cool should be irritating, but it plays nicely against Varda’s warmth, and the affection between them carries the film a long way.

Some of it is very cheesy, and knowingly so. I did roll my eyes at the postman delivering the letter N. But the film keeps sneaking up on you. Under all the playfulness, it is really about memory, seeing people properly, and what it means to keep making art while time is catching up with you. Light, generous, quietly moving. A real tonic.