La Pointe-Courte (1954)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Walter M

  
  In "La Pointe Courte," a young man(Philippe Noiret) waits every day for his wife(Silvia Monfort) of four years at the train station. On the fifth day, she arrives and is now away from her home of Paris and on his turf in a small fishing village, where he left twelve years… More
  In "La Pointe Courte," a young man(Philippe Noiret) waits every day for his wife(Silvia Monfort) of four years at the train station. On the fifth day, she arrives and is now away from her home of Paris and on his turf in a small fishing village, where he left twelve years previously. This is the first time they have taken a vacation and are using it to reconsider their marriage. With her first movie, "La Pointe Courte," Agnes Varda welds together the old and the new. She tries something new by framing the couple in every conceivable way. For example, the first we see of them together is from behind. This inventive approach is set against a neorealist background of how the villagers live their lives, struggling to maintain their livelihoods, illustrated well in a storyline concerning the authorities cracking down on fishing regulations. (Originally reviewed in the blog section on July 17, 2009.)

• MJS M

  
  Agnes Varda is a filmmaker I?ve been meaning to catch up with, and the logical way to program this personal marathon is to watch the films in Criterion?s ?4 by Agnes? box set (minus Vagabond, which I?ve already seen). This was Varda?s first film, and like many debut efforts by great… More
  Agnes Varda is a filmmaker I?ve been meaning to catch up with, and the logical way to program this personal marathon is to watch the films in Criterion?s ?4 by Agnes? box set (minus Vagabond, which I?ve already seen). This was Varda?s first film, and like many debut efforts by great filmmakers it shows a lot of creativity and promise, but it has a lot of rookie mistakes. The film is generally not very ambitious, it seems that Varda was more interested in setting the film in the titular Mediterranean fishing village than she was in telling a satisfying story. She clearly displays a good eye for imagery, but this is essentially a glorified student film and there just isn?t a enough meat on the bone to take a good bite off. Fun fact: Alain Resnais was the editor.