Introduction to the French Avant Garde: Part II

JANE B. PAR AGNES VARDA (1988) (B) - This documentary from French New Wave icon Agnes Varda is a fascinating historical nugget, a biographical study that plays like a dry run for her late-career masterpiece, 2009's autobiographical "Beaches of Agnes."

Here, shooting in the late '80s, Varda's focus is not on herself but on the '60s screen icon Jane Birkin on the brink of middle age. The two had just worked together in 1987's "Le Petit Amour," in which Birkin stars as a woman who falls in love with a 14-year-old (played by Varda's son with Jacques Demy, Mathieu). Birkin blew up in Antonioni's "Blow Up" and then famously hooked up with chanteur Serge Gainsbourg to create pop-culture milestones like "Je T'aime Moi Non Plus" and a very talented daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg (who is glimpsed here and there as a teenager and who would fully realize the potential of both of her parents).

In addition to vintage clips (and some fun classic rock from the '60s), Birkin is filmed in rather ordinary, intimate settings. She cuddles with her dog, she cooks for her children, she runs errands, she fiddles on a movie set. She's quite the nester and mother. Some of the scenes would have fit in on that era's celebrity-fluff show "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."

But, of course, Varda is scrounging deeper for insight into the onetime fashion icon. The disappointing result is that the mission falls short. Birkin isn't particularly insightful or even that interesting as a person. She's not an intense thinker, and she doesn't seem to have taken a deep dive into herself. It's debatable whether those eyes of hers have anything profound to communicate.

Which isn't to say that the film itself is boring or pointless. Varda is hunting around here, and if this is a demo for a fully realized film two decades hence, then it has a use for film buffs as well as pop-culture hounds. Birkin play-acts in various guises, including a Laurel & Hardy spoof co-starring her director. Birkin's portrayal of Joan of Arc being burned at the stake is the only scene that shows any serious depth as an actress.

Varda ("Cleo From 5 to 7") is known for a gaze that is almost borderline lurid. She stages multiple set pieces that qualify as art installations. (Mirrors play a prominent role, as they do famously in "Beaches.") In one recurring theme, Birkin portrays different characters in a painting come to life. She reclines like Venus, naked, on a fainting couch, and Varda's camera zooms in, in extreme closeup, tracing Birkin's body from her toes, crawling slowly up the left side, over a nipple and, finally, to Birkin's own intense gaze. It is a magnificent celebration of female beauty and power, so fundamentally human yet posed and mannered.

It's those fleeting moments that make this movie a fascinating historical artifact. At the beginning of the film, the women meet at a restaurant, and Birkin whispers to Varda, "I'll look at you, but not at the camera -- it could be a trap." The subject proceeds to keep her guard up, exposing herself to the camera but, as she had in the past, keeping much that's below the surface hidden.

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