So this is an unusual documentary made by two persons: Agnès Varda and JR. Varda is a director of some reknown with a body of work that mostly predates the French New Wave though I’ve never watched any of it. JR is a photographer and artist who refuses to reveal his real name and apparently wears his hat and dark sunglasses combo non-stop. This film is a sort of travelogue as they make their way through rural France in a specially designed van.

Fixed up so as to look like a giant camera, the van is equipped with a photo lab and printer. JR uses this equipment to create giant posters out of the photographs he takes and paste them on structures such as buildings, water tanks and train carriages. This films shows the duo travelling through villages, farms, even a factory and the port of Le Havre to do their thing. These include both individual and group portraits and naturally JR displays plenty of creativity in getting the right poses and compositions for where he intends to paste the blown up posters. As they do so, they stop to talk with the local populace who are usually happy to speak both about their lives and about what they feel about the project. The playful conversation between Varda and JR as they go around serves to lighten the mood and add a touch of philosophical introspection.

Pasting gigantic posters seems trivial as art installations go. After all you see it everywhere in Malaysia in the form of advertising. But it has to be said that the stark black and white images writ large does have a dramatic effect once complete. As cool as it is to do this on stacks of containers or train carriages, I think it’s more meaningful to see them on ordinary houses in the countryside where they quickly become a focal point of conversation and something of a local tourist attraction. I also like how Varda and JR don’t pick the places that they visit at random but from their own memories of the people they once knew who lived there. This makes their reminiscing of past anecdotes and old acquaintances an integral part of the film and makes it very personal for the two of them.

For my part, I greatly enjoyed how it provides a window into everyday life in rural France. For example, it’s sobering to see how a man can single-handedly farm hundreds of acres thanks to modern technology, leading him to comment that farming has become a solitary profession. Similarly, it’s fascinating to see a small goat farm run by only two people co-existing alongside more modern ones or how one town still maintains someone as its official bell-ringer. Even mundane scenes like a bar or a restaurant in a small village serves as a wonderful reminder that France is more than its big cities and I got a kick out of hearing the local accents in their speech.

All in all, this isn’t an especially deep documentary being more casual and light in tone. However it is a very enjoyable and pleasant one to watch. As usual with such documentaries, it leaves me puzzled how artists like JR make any money.