I was wary this film was going to be a sentimental paean to an aging French celebrity- fortunately, it was anything but! Faces/Places is a collaboration between artist/actor/film-maker Agnes Varda and photographer/environmental artist JR, a collaboration between two artists and two people on opposite ends of the age spectrum engaging in a shared artistic road trip. Each has different ways of seeing, interpreting and executing; each has separate goals.
They embark on their mutual journey towards self exploration and discovery in the French countryside on a truck disguised as a giant camera, and manage to produce ginormous, mural sized prints with which they manage to decorate various failing or mundane vistas, incl: abandoned buildings, railroad cars, water tanks, etc. Along the way they not only manage to discuss and confront each other on various philosophies and approaches to art and life as a whole- they also engage the everyday people they encounter and make them active, fellow collaborators in the art they produce and impart...
PS-
I was struck by one worker in particular who was interviewed about the art being
produced- as he returned to his job, back to camera, he
reflects aloud, "It's surprising, and art is meant to surprise us."
Sadly, I don't think your average, working class, American male would
have had the same positive reaction... or insight- the kind that could help ward off the disaffected disinterest that can instead extend to guns and violence.
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