# The Beaches of Agnès
**The Beaches of Agnès** (French: *Les Plages d'Agnès*) is a 2008 French autobiographical documentary in which the filmmaker [Agnès Varda](https://www.edgepedia.org/agnes-varda) revisits the beaches and places that marked her life, staging herself among extracts from her films, photographs, and news reports.[1](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D131875.html) Made in her eightieth year and originally intended as her farewell to filmmaking, it is a self-portrait that moves from the [North Sea](https://www.edgepedia.org/north-sea) beaches of her Belgian childhood to the Mediterranean village where she shot her first film and the boardwalks of Los Angeles where she lived with her husband, the filmmaker [Jacques Demy](https://www.edgepedia.org/jacques-demy).[2](https://www.janusfilms.com/films/1970)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | *Les Plages d'Agnès* |
| Director, writer, subject | Agnès Varda (1928–2019), who also produced through Ciné-Tamaris[3](https://cine-tamaris.fr/agnes-varda/les-plages-dagnes-2008/) |
| Release | France, 17 December 2008; Belgium, 11 March 2009[4](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/86167/) |
| Runtime | 110 minutes (some distributors list 112)[5](https://www.lemonde.fr/vous/article/2010/02/19/les-plages-d-agnes_1308712_3238.html) • [2](https://www.janusfilms.com/films/1970) |
| Production | Ciné-Tamaris / Arte France Cinéma, with Canal+ participation; distributed by Les Films du Losange[3](https://cine-tamaris.fr/agnes-varda/les-plages-dagnes-2008/) |
| Awards | César for Best Documentary and the Étoile d'Or for Best Documentary, both 2009[6](https://www.cinergie.be/article/les-plages-d-agnes-d-agnes-varda-2009-12-01) • [7](https://mediatheques.montpellier3m.fr/ESBAMA/doc/CAMO/905970) |
| Reception | 96% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (72 reviews); press average 4.6/5 on AlloCiné from 26 reviews[8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/les-plages-dagnes) • [9](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-131875/critiques/presse/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Paris, in Varda's eightieth year. Trucks dump sand on the street outside her home on the Rue Daguerre, and a tight shot of her directing a crew in bathing suits on a "beach" widens to reveal the city street around them.[17](https://archive.pov.org/beachesofagnes/film-description/) From the first minutes she states the thesis of the whole film: "If we opened people up, we'd find landscapes. If we opened me up, we'd find beaches."[18](https://www.criterion.com/films/30112-the-beaches-of-agnes) Then she opens herself up, in an order dictated not by chronology but by association, one image calling up the next.
She was born in Brussels in 1928, and the film sifts her life from there onward.[19](https://www.npr.org/2009/07/16/106690189/beaches-of-agnes-fetes-an-aging-queen-of-tides) Belgian beaches, adolescence in occupied Paris, art history studies, a turn to photography, and then a fishing village called Sète, where in 1954, at 25 and with almost no money, she shot her first feature, *La Pointe Courte*, now credited as a precursor of the [French New Wave](https://www.edgepedia.org/french-new-wave).[20](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/wave-goodbye-agnes-vardas-the-beaches-of-agnes-70223/) Clips from *Cléo from 5 to 7* and *Vagabond* are threaded through, along with the stories of how each film got made.[17](https://archive.pov.org/beachesofagnes/film-description/) There are detours into her activism, the feminist movement, and her time in Los Angeles, where she lived with Demy and crossed paths with the Black Panthers, Harrison Ford, and [Jim Morrison](https://www.edgepedia.org/jim-morrison).[21](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/film-review-beaches-agnes-125102/)
Varda is honest about her own fictions throughout. She rebuilds her childhood house as a giant plywood frame and walks inside it. She recreates Manet's *Olympia* as a tableau vivant (staged scene of live people posing as a picture) and covers it in flies. She photographs a beach and then walks into the photograph. Actors and friends, including [Catherine Deneuve](https://www.edgepedia.org/catherine-deneuve), Gérard Depardieu, and [Jane Birkin](https://www.edgepedia.org/jane-birkin), appear in staged beach tableaux, and her elusive friend and fellow filmmaker [Chris Marker](https://www.edgepedia.org/chris-marker) shows up repeatedly as an animated orange cat delivering comments in a digitally altered voice.[17](https://archive.pov.org/beachesofagnes/film-description/) At a flea market she finds a movie lobby card for her own 1981 film *Documenteur* and buys it back for safekeeping.[20](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/wave-goodbye-agnes-vardas-the-beaches-of-agnes-70223/)
The emotional center is Jacques Demy, and Varda does not save him for the end. Early in the film she states on camera, for the first time in her life publicly, that Demy died of AIDS in 1990.[20](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/wave-goodbye-agnes-vardas-the-beaches-of-agnes-70223/) When she reaches the full account, it is restrained and devastating: the story of his blood disease and transfusions, archival footage of him, and the dream in which he appears to her and she is simply happy. She films her own face while listening to a recording of his voice, and the image does what a hundred interview documentaries never manage.
**The film's most celebrated sequence is cinema remembering itself.** Varda returns to the village of her first film, where two fishermen, young men when she first filmed them half a century earlier and now old, are shown watching themselves on a screen. The staging is the point: a screen is mounted on the old market cart from *La Pointe Courte*, with a 16mm projector, the original film, and even electricity loaded aboard, and the cart is pushed through the village at night by Varda's own now-grown children, while complicated traveling shots follow it.[22](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-beaches-of-agnes) Roger Ebert called it the most poetic shot about cinema he had ever seen.[22](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-beaches-of-agnes) Varda herself described it as "cinema in cinema, and memory into an action," and compared pushing the cart, like a funeral procession pushing a corpse, to pushing memory itself into the night.[23](https://filmmakermagazine.com/1375-agnes-varda-the-beaches-of-agnes/)
Other sequences linger the same way. On a real beach, mirrors are planted among the dunes so that figures appear and dissolve in the reflections, the ocean multiplied in a kaleidoscope of glass.[18](https://www.criterion.com/films/30112-the-beaches-of-agnes) Varda is often shown walking backward, mirroring the film's backward journey, and at one point she sails a boat single-handedly down the Seine under the [Pont Neuf](https://www.edgepedia.org/pont-neuf).[22](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-beaches-of-agnes) On a beach, her children and grandchildren, all dressed in white, perform a slow ballet while Varda, dressed in black, dances behind them: the living in front, the filmmaker and her memories following.[22](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-beaches-of-agnes) And there is silliness, unabashed: Varda dresses up as a potato, an homage to her photographic series of gnarled heart-shaped potatoes she once refused to sell.[19](https://www.npr.org/2009/07/16/106690189/beaches-of-agnes-fetes-an-aging-queen-of-tides)
The film ends where it began, on the constructed beach. The crew packs up the sand and the set comes down.
### Characters
**Agnès Varda (herself)** is the film's subject, narrator, director, and constant on-screen presence. At 80 she examines her life with neither false modesty nor self-mythology, staging her memories while admitting each reconstruction is a fake, and talking candidly about age, her body, love, and loss.
**Jacques Demy (himself, in archival footage)** is Varda's husband and fellow filmmaker, director of *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg*. His death in 1990 is the grief that shadows the whole film, and Varda confirms on camera for the first time that he died of AIDS.[17](https://archive.pov.org/beachesofagnes/film-description/)
**Mathieu Demy and Rosalie Varda (themselves)** are Varda's children with Demy. They appear and talk, and in the cart sequence they are the ones pushing their father's image through the night.[23](https://filmmakermagazine.com/1375-agnes-varda-the-beaches-of-agnes/)
**The orange cat (Chris Marker)** is the reclusive filmmaker's only appearance, an animated tomcat offering pithy commentary in a digitally altered voice.[17](https://archive.pov.org/beachesofagnes/film-description/)
### Interpretations and controversies
There is no controversy to speak of, but there is a famous structural debate among viewers: Varda reveals Demy's death and its cause in the first stretch of the film rather than saving it. Some find it an abrupt weight dropped early; most critics read it as the film's masterstroke, letting grief accumulate through every later scene the way it accumulates in life.
## Form and method
Varda called the film an "autodocumentaire", a form she invented for the occasion: returning to the beaches that marked her life, she stages herself amid extracts from her films, images, and reportage.[10](https://www.filmfrance.net/films/les-plages-dagnes/) She described her approach as "cinécriture", or cinema-writing, a collage of archives, reportage, photographs, dreamlike scenes, and on-site art installations.[5](https://www.lemonde.fr/vous/article/2010/02/19/les-plages-d-agnes_1308712_3238.html) The film mixes black and white and color, and its imagery includes the ocean reflected in a kaleidoscope of mirrors, the streets of Paris turned into an urban sand beach, and the filmmaker herself inside the belly of a whale.[2](https://www.janusfilms.com/films/1970)
The title's beaches are literal and varied: the North Sea coast of Belgium where she spent her early childhood, Sète where she filmed *La Pointe Courte*, Noirmoutier, Venice, and Santa Monica in Los Angeles.[5](https://www.lemonde.fr/vous/article/2010/02/19/les-plages-d-agnes_1308712_3238.html) • [2](https://www.janusfilms.com/films/1970) In Paris, to justify the title, a beach was created in the middle of the rue Daguerre, between her house and her editing room, following the city's "Paris-Plage" project that had unloaded sand on the banks of the Seine; the courtyard there, the center of her production company Ciné-Tamaris, holds more than fifty years of history.[11](https://medias.unifrance.org/medias/95/144/36959/presse/les-plages-d-agnes-dossier-de-presse-anglais.pdf)
The film opens with Varda bringing mirrors to the beach, and its governing image is stated in her narration: "If we opened people up, we'd find landscapes. If we opened me up, we'd find beaches."[8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/les-plages-dagnes) • [2](https://www.janusfilms.com/films/1970)
## Life recounted
The film traces Varda's whole life. Born in 1928 in Brussels to a Greek father and a French mother, she spent her early childhood in Belgium before her family moved to France during the Second World War.[12](https://salarekalde.bizkaia.eus/fitxategiak/Rekalde/dokumentuak/pdfak/eu_agenda_74.pdf) She recounts, with humor and emotion, her beginnings as a theater photographer, her emergence as an innovative filmmaker of the French New Wave in the 1950s, her life with Jacques Demy, her feminist engagement, her travels to Cuba, China, and the United States, her career as an independent producer, and her family life.[10](https://www.filmfrance.net/films/les-plages-dagnes/) • [4](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/86167/)
Demy, who died in 1990, is the film's emotional center; the faces of loved ones who have died pass through it, including Jean Vilar, Jim Morrison, Alexander Calder, and Chris Marker, whose cat figure Monsieur Chat provides improbable transitions.[13](https://vod.arte.tv/detail/les_plages_d_agnes) The film also incorporates rare material, including extracts from Varda's lost 1970 film *Nausicaa* with [Gérard Depardieu](https://www.edgepedia.org/gerard-depardieu) and France Dougnac, and archive footage supplied by the INA.[3](https://cine-tamaris.fr/agnes-varda/les-plages-dagnes-2008/) Appearing alongside Varda are her children Mathieu Demy and Rosalie Varda, and the actor Yolande Moreau.[1](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D131875.html) • [14](https://repertoire.cinema.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/film/les-plages-dagnes-324342/)
## Reception and awards
The film won the César for Best Documentary Film in 2009.[6](https://www.cinergie.be/article/les-plages-d-agnes-d-agnes-varda-2009-12-01) It also received the Étoile d'Or for Best Documentary, the prize of the French cinema press, in 2009.[7](https://mediatheques.montpellier3m.fr/ESBAMA/doc/CAMO/905970) (A *Le Monde* television listing states the César was awarded in 2007; the film's French release was in December 2008, and the 2009 date is the one given by the film's own production and press sources.[5](https://www.lemonde.fr/vous/article/2010/02/19/les-plages-d-agnes_1308712_3238.html) • [6](https://www.cinergie.be/article/les-plages-d-agnes-d-agnes-varda-2009-12-01))
French critics received it warmly. AlloCiné's press average was 4.6 out of 5 across 26 reviews, with *Les Inrockuptibles* calling it an autoportrait and film-bilan to be ranked among its maker's finest achievements, and *Le Monde* describing Varda as a gleaner of privileged moments who chines, strolls, films, and amuses herself.[9](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-131875/critiques/presse/) On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 96% Tomatometer from 72 reviews and an 88% audience score, and its United States gross was $239.7 thousand.[8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/les-plages-dagnes)
## Place in Varda's work
Scholarship on the film identifies it as Varda's first genuinely autobiographical film and one of the few autobiographies in cinema to embrace the story of a whole life.[15](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/seci.10.1.59_1) It followed her 2000 self-portrait-in-passing *Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse*, and in the 2000s Varda made both that film and *Les Plages d'Agnès*, the latter earning her a César.[12](https://salarekalde.bizkaia.eus/fitxategiak/Rekalde/dokumentuak/pdfak/eu_agenda_74.pdf) After the film's release Varda traveled for two years presenting it around the world, a journey she turned into the filmed chronicles of *Agnès de-ci de-là Varda*.[16](https://mk2films.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/10/mk2-catalogue-fra-interactif.pdf) The film was released on DVD by Arte vidéo in 2012 paired with *La Pointe Courte* in the *Tout(e)Varda* collection.[7](https://mediatheques.montpellier3m.fr/ESBAMA/doc/CAMO/905970)
## References
1. [Les Plages d'Agnès, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D131875.html)
2. [The Beaches of Agnès, Janus Films](https://www.janusfilms.com/films/1970)
3. [Les Plages d'Agnès (2008), Ciné-Tamaris](https://cine-tamaris.fr/agnes-varda/les-plages-dagnes-2008/)
4. [The Beaches of Agnes (Les Plages d'Agnès), Cineuropa](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/86167/)
5. [Les Plages d'Agnès, Le Monde (19 February 2010)](https://www.lemonde.fr/vous/article/2010/02/19/les-plages-d-agnes_1308712_3238.html)
6. [Les plages d'Agnès d'Agnès Varda, Cinergie (1 December 2009)](https://www.cinergie.be/article/les-plages-d-agnes-d-agnes-varda-2009-12-01)
7. [Les Plages d'Agnès. La Pointe courte, Bibliothèque de l'école des beaux-arts de Montpellier](https://mediatheques.montpellier3m.fr/ESBAMA/doc/CAMO/905970)
8. [The Beaches of Agnès, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/les-plages-dagnes)
9. [Critiques Presse pour le film Les Plages d'Agnès, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-131875/critiques/presse/)
10. [Les plages d'Agnès, Film France CNC](https://www.filmfrance.net/films/les-plages-dagnes/)
11. [Les Plages d'Agnès press kit (English), UniFrance](https://medias.unifrance.org/medias/95/144/36959/presse/les-plages-d-agnes-dossier-de-presse-anglais.pdf)
12. [Les Plages d'Agnès, un film d'Agnès Varda, Sala Rekalde program notes](https://salarekalde.bizkaia.eus/fitxategiak/Rekalde/dokumentuak/pdfak/eu_agenda_74.pdf)
13. [plages d'Agnès (Les), Arte VOD](https://vod.arte.tv/detail/les_plages_d_agnes)
14. [Les plages d'Agnès, Répertoire des films classés (Québec)](https://repertoire.cinema.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/film/les-plages-dagnes-324342/)
15. [Autobiography, (re-)enactment and the performative self-portrait in Varda's Les Plages d'Agnès, Studies in European Cinema](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/seci.10.1.59_1)
16. [Agnès de-ci de-là Varda, mk2 Films catalog](https://mk2films.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/10/mk2-catalogue-fra-interactif.pdf)
17. [https://archive.pov.org/beachesofagnes/film-description/](https://archive.pov.org/beachesofagnes/film-description/)
18. [https://www.criterion.com/films/30112-the-beaches-of-agnes](https://www.criterion.com/films/30112-the-beaches-of-agnes)
19. [https://www.npr.org/2009/07/16/106690189/beaches-of-agnes-fetes-an-aging-queen-of-tides](https://www.npr.org/2009/07/16/106690189/beaches-of-agnes-fetes-an-aging-queen-of-tides)
20. [https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/wave-goodbye-agnes-vardas-the-beaches-of-agnes-70223/](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/wave-goodbye-agnes-vardas-the-beaches-of-agnes-70223/)
21. [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/film-review-beaches-agnes-125102/](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/film-review-beaches-agnes-125102/)
22. [https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-beaches-of-agnes](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-beaches-of-agnes)
23. [https://filmmakermagazine.com/1375-agnes-varda-the-beaches-of-agnes/](https://filmmakermagazine.com/1375-agnes-varda-the-beaches-of-agnes/)
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