'I inhabit the cinema,' Agnès Varda says at the end of her autobiographical film, The Beaches of Agnès. 'It's my house. It seems I have always lived here.' Of course we understand her metaphorically, even if we wouldn't put it past the bag-lady character she plays at various moments in this work to set up house inside some forgotten foyer. At one point she films a protest march, many young people carrying signs urgently calling out for change. Varda herself suddenly appears on the sidelines, a little old lady, as she calls herself, also carrying a placard. It says 'J'ai mal partout' - 'I hurt everywhere.' This phrase also has a metaphorical freight, an implication of the pain of the world; but the freight is light, and quickly swept away by the literal meaning. One can protest against old age.

LRB 5 November 2009 | PDF Download