Agnès Varda breaks down how beaches play a part in her work
The French New Wave was a seminal era in history that male directors and writers largely dominated despite many of the movies revolving around female characters. However, Agnès Varda’s approach to filmmaking welcomed a well-needed female perspective, and from the 1950s until the 2010s, Varda worked between fiction, documentary, and work that blended the two.
Always empathetic, curious and innovative, Varda presented many stories centring around marginalised groups, mainly women. Her 1962 movie Cleo From 5 to 7 was a seminal work of feminist filmmaking, dissecting the feminine experience with reference to the male gaze and the patriarchal expectations placed on women. Over a decade later, blending musical, ripe social commentary and fiction, Varda made One Sings, The Other Doesn’t, exploring motherhood and the struggle for abortion rights just two years after France finally made it legal.
Varda’s main aim was to make movies that were personal while also speaking to wider social issues at the same time. One of the most striking examples of this is her 2000 work The Gleaners and I, which explored the experiences of various people who ‘glean’ – those who must eat out of bins to survive, artists who create out of scraps, or people who glean for environmental reasons. Varda places video portraits of herself within the documentary, filming her greying hair and wrinkled hands, comparing the lines to a potato.
From then on, potatoes became a symbol associated with Varda’s work, with people even leaving the vegetables on her grave. However, another symbol that infiltrated Varda’s work – this time from the very beginning – was the beach. A place of tranquillity and escape from the bustle of the city, the beach can be found in countless fictional and non-fictional movies made by the French New Wave icon.
The beach first appears in her debut, La Pointe Courte, released in 1955. A few years later, she made the short Along the Coast, a vividly coloured exploration of the French Riveria. Since then, the seaside has been featured throughout her movies, but the most prominent example is The Beaches of Agnès.
The film sees Varda explore nostalgic places from her past, retracing her life through various beaches and discussing her career. Using her usual unconventional style, the auteur emphasises the multitudinous feelings that make life so special, with sand and sea providing the backdrop. She even says, “If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes. If we opened me up, we’d find beaches.”
In an interview with Bomb Magazine, she revealed the significance of featuring beaches in her work. “For me, it makes sense for me to show all the beaches I’ve lived close by to during the course of my life.” Thus, Varda is able to trace a line through her life by showing these important locations. No matter where the beaches are – they might be the “Belgian beaches of my childhood” or the “Pacific beaches, since [Jacques Demy] and I lived in California for a while as well” – Varda is able to create a narrative through these locations. “I play with the idea of showing all these beaches in my work. Now I’ve had to invent an urban beach here on the Rue Daguerre, the street where I live,” she added.
By making imaginary beaches (in the film, she builds a beach in the middle of a Parisian street), Varda highlights the importance of carrying distinctive places with you wherever you go. To illuminate this point, she literally assembled a fake beach, but Varda’s message is simply to take these precious memories with you wherever you go – to inspire, to reflect on, and to appreciate.
Moreover, the beauty of these natural landscapes highlights a separation from society. Beaches, particularly empty ones, almost feel like a place of escape from the demands of consumerism and capitalism – structures that oppress women. Thus, Varda’s preoccupation with the beach perhaps highlights her interest in allowing women a sense of freedom, even if it is only temporary.
