Helena Lindblad: the Film's playful little woman, burned for both the reality and the imagination

For just a few days ago I saw what would become Agnès Vardas film, documentary, ”Varda by Agnès”, where the 90-year-old supergumman guides the audience one last time through their colorful and fantastic wayward filmography.

the Tears fell at the ending when her calm, happy voice say: ”Now I become fuzzier and fuzzier... Now, I leave you....” The movie was so obvious a cinematic testament based on her three artistic key concepts: inspiration, creation and sharing. Now, she has left us for real, and it feels like someone very close to me has gone out of time.

Agnès Varda was to the last a piece of living history, a charming little lady wrapped in colourful, floral-layer-on-layer-clothes, and with his distinctive, two-tone mössfrisyr as a strong brand.

she made her groundbreaking debut film, relationsdramat ”La Pointe-Courte” which is set in a fishing village and became a feminist starting point for the French new wave. She had a still camera, however, no real track of film directing – but gave it to succeed.

the Next film, ”Cléo from 5 to 7” secured to Be come to the film world to stay. Also the experimental skilsmässofilmen ”My happiness” (1965) made an impression.

the French new wave poster child as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais and Claude Chabrol drove quickly on to her and it took most of the spotlight.

But while all of the generation, in principle, have fallen silent long ago was Be left – in the middle of the step, in the midst of the desire to continue to create.

the Whole her winding career is like an ode to the trendbrytande frifräsighet and adventurism that characterized the sixties.

Some of her best films, she did however, much later, as ”Vagabond” (1985) with Sandrine Bonnaire in the lead role. Also where was Agnès Varda, a pioneer when she portrayed a young, angry woman on the vagabonds in existence and who refused to adapt to society's standards.

I saw it time and time again as a young filmstudent, couldn't let go of the barren undergångsskildringen that unfolds on the back of the quaint, touristy south of france. If you see today, you will see still highly topical themes such as divisions based on class, homelessness and mental illness.

was also her most star-studded. ”101 nights”, which was made to the film's centenary in 1995, was a real belly flop despite the fact that Robert De Niro flew in with a Concorde to the recording in order to play against Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni.

Vardas actual cinematic passion was probably a documentary. As a youngster she travelled all over the world: from the Black Pantrarnas Los Angeles (”Black Panther”) to the postrevolutionära Cuba (”Salut les cubains”). She also participated for example in the episodfilmen ”Far from Vietnam” in the struggle against the war.

With time, however, was Agnès Varda increasingly inclined to merge his passion for reality with an imaginative playfulness that brought her into the world of art.

In the autobiographical video piece ”The three lives of Agnès Varda”, which appeared a few years ago at a large exhibition at the Bildmuseet in Umeå, sweden, she spoke about their three ”lives”. She began as a still photographer, lived a long time in the movie prequel comic world side by side with her husband, Jacques Demy (”Umbrellas of Cherbourg”) and devoted a major part of their old age to installations using photographs, moving image and sculptural works interacted.

But under all the layers of games continued Vardas heart to clap for people in exclusion. Documentaries such as ”Gleaning” (2000), depicting people in the midst of the welfare state, which lived on to pick up food that others left behind, in markets, in the fields and in containers.

, ”Faces, places”, which Oscarsnominerades last year, just got a road movie in the French countryside where reality and fantasy merge.

JR and Agnès Varda Photo: Folkets Bio

In the film travel Kit together with the almost sixty years younger colleague JR in his specially equipped van that is a mobile photo booth with the ability to print stylish jättekopior which then can be pasted up on the walls everywhere.

the Duo takes out, inter alia, to a disused gruvarbetardistrikt, meets the alternative getbönder that refuse to burn away the animal's horn, and hangs out with militant dock workers in the south. A ”La France profonde”, the people of France, that Be and JR experience beyond the polarization and political slogans.

A little melancholic but very happy movie that is perhaps the very, very best summarizes the Agnès Vardas special position in the film and art world. But, above all, depicting her unique ability to demonstrate that art, commitment, and a playful glance at the world can be anything other than banal.