FACES PLACES

 

My French Club made the film Faces Places the focus of our meeting last week.

The award-winning 2017 documentary is simple, gentle, and quietly captivating. In it, the elderly filmmaker Agnès Varda teams up with the young artist JR to travel through rural France, photographing ordinary people living ordinary lives. Together, they transform these portraits into enormous public artworks, pasting them onto buildings, barns, and other landmarks. Their creative collaboration leaves a lasting impression not only on the people they photograph but also on the communities they visit.

For many of the townspeople, these portraits become a source of pride and shared identity. Interestingly, only one person fully embraces the attention. Most are either surprised or noticeably uncomfortable seeing their faces displayed so prominently in public. I know I would be among the latter.

The film fulfils Varda's vision of celebrating everyday people—helping them feel part of something larger and revealing the quiet beauty of the human spirit.

Agnès Varda died in 2019 at the age of 90.