Les plages d'Agnès 2008

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: [Varda] has a way of never explaining very much, and yet somehow making it all clear. She does this by not treating her life as a lesson in biography, but as the treasured memories of friends. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Agnes Varda manages to be full of herself without seeming ... full of herself. Perhaps that's because her self is full of so much other stuff: friends, photos, films, buildings, and beaches. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The warm, elfin filmmaker makes a fine companion through this vivid story of a life well lived, reminding us at the end of how we create our own safe havens within our families. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: The Beaches Of Agnes is held together primarily by Varda's wide-ranging interests and formidable storytelling skills. The movie is a digression built on a digression, branching near-infinitely. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Varda recalls her childhood, her adulthood, her politics, and how both her films and her two children were born. She doesn't just show us, she takes us inside of it all, inside of her. It's a reverie. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Packed as the new film is with so many interlocking love stories, of people and places, of ideas and experimentation, it's difficult not to leave the theater giddy at being swept up in her embrace. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: In this visually witty 2008 memoir she's poring over her own past and its artifacts. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Ultimately, her movie is about how her life, anybody's life, is created out of oddments that never quite cohere, and don't need to. The sheer sensuousness of all these bric-a-brac memories is sustaining. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: The Beaches of Agnes is a work of delightful contradictions from a filmmaker who has always played by her own rules. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The Beaches of Agnes taps a haunting nostalgia, because it invites the art-house 
audience to get wistful for what it once was - that is, for a time when an artist like Varda only had to dream it, and we would come. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Replete with clips and anecdotes, The Beaches of Agnes is a treat to anyone who already cherishes Varda's films and a perfect primer for those who haven't yet discovered her work. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: A sentimental, whimsical autobiography. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: A captivating cine-memoir, impressionistic and surrealistic, surveying Varda's formidable career as a still photographer, filmmaker, documentarian, and life force. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Filmmakers don't usually do documentaries about themselves, but Agnes Varda's The Beaches of Agnes is good enough to start a trend. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: When was the last time you saw a world-renowned director converse with a cartoon cat or dress as a potato? Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: As evidenced in The Beaches of Agnes, Varda is too venerable to be hip -- and too wholly alive to be venerated. Read more

James Adams, Globe and Mail: This is a lovely, quirky and not a little poignant film from Agnes Varda, at 81 the still spry grande dame of the Nouvelle Vague that revolutionized French and world cinema in the late 1950s and early 60s. Read more

Greg Quill, Toronto Star: Intensely personal and universally adaptable, The Beaches of Agnes is at once Varda's gift to posterity, and to a world that that undervalues the small and seemingly insignificant events through which we drift unconsciously, but which leave a mark. Read more

Hank Sartin, Time Out: Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: A puckish, moving and wonderfully eccentric tour through her life. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: By turns insightful, schmaltzy, anecdotal, critical and nostalgic. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: In a sense, Varda has done for herself what she did for Demy -- creating a work, as charming as it is touching, that serves to explicate and enrich an entire oeuvre. Read more