"As insistently wry as it is haunting." - Eric Henderson

Varda is an instantly lovable character, as we revel in her memories and relationships and idiosyncratic look at things. The film has a wonderfully playful spirit, a kind of giddy fearlessness. The line between her cinema and her life is constantly being blurred, stepped over and danced around. Some of the tangents are less interesting than others, but it never gets bogged down in a boring section for very long. There are some very touching moments as well, especially when she talks about Demy.

What a charming woman- makes you want to see all her films.

Unbelievably self-indulgent. I can't care about this woman's life. I can't believe my PSI was 88 for this.

Varda is the coolest old lady ever. This is such a fun little doc full of insight into Varda's remarkably interesting life and a bunch of neat little observations. This mediocre review doesn't do justice to just how charismatic and full of life the film is.

12 Nisan 09, 21:30, atlas sinemasi. verda'nin izledigim ikinci filmi. 28. ist. film fest. & bu kadar kisisel, bu kadar fransiz, bu kadar siirsel ve ozverili... saygiyla egiliyorum.

She travels the entire length of Memory Lane (a block or two of which she has travelled in her previous documentaries, the Rue Daguerre in Daguerreotypes, for instance), revisiting the locales of her childhood, digging up black-and-white photos of her little self in a swimsuit, in addition to the locales of her films, digging up abundant clips from them, including a rarity of the very young and skinny Gerard Depardieu as a bearded beatnik.

A lady who was the only female director of the French New Wave, married to another member of it, marched in '60s antiwar demonstrations, and who hung out with Jim Morrison must have had a much more interesting life than this film is. This may be the only documentary that's left the most interesting stuff out of the film. We hear about how her husband, Jacques Demy, died of AIDS in 1990. How did Mme. Varda *not* get it? If she *was* infected, why is she 81, still alive, and kicking today?