Agnes Varda was a titan of French cinema. She was a member of the French New Wave and a pioneer of using location shooting and non-professional actors. She made narrative films and documentaries. I’ve only previously seen Cleon From 5 to 7 but it is a masterpiece. My wife adores The Gleaners and I.
I keep telling myself I need to watch more foreign language films this month, and I keep finding other things to watch, but before February comes to a close, I wanted to watch something. Something short. Because it has been a long day and I’m tired.
Luckily the Criterion Channel has a bunch of short films and they even categorize them by their time frames – Under 60 minutes, Under 30 minutes, Under 15 minutes…
Les 3 Boutons (The Three Buttons) is an eleven-minute film from Agnes Varda. It was commissioned by the fashion house Miu Miu. It stars Jasmine Thiré as a young goat farmer who goes on a magical journey.
A postman brings her a package. Inside the package is a large red-looking tarp. When she unfolds it the tarp becomes an enormous red dress. The girl walks inside the dress and finds herself in a cave. When she spies some school girls walking down a lane her own clothes turn into the same dresses they are wearing. Suddenly, she’s on a city street. When she spies some kids having ice cream she reaches inside her pocket and finds her own cone. It is a stream-of-consciousness fable.
Varda infuses this very simple story with a playfulness and joy that is a delight to behold. There isn’t much to it, and so I don’t have a lot to say about it. But if you have the Criterion Channel (or Mubi) and you have 11 minutes to spare I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
themidnightcafe.org 