Agnès Varda | 1956 | France | 80 Min

Part of Monday Night Movies

The great Agnès Varda’s film career began with this graceful, penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple (played by Silvia Monfort and Philippe Noiret) and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the locals, Varda’s discursive, gorgeously filmed debut was radical enough to later be considered one of the progenitors of the coming French New Wave.

This is from Agnes Varda debut feature 'La Pointe Courte', 1955. These are the first two minutes. In three tracking shots the camera seems to float through the alley, then cut to a man standing, with camera turning around the corner at the exact moment a local fisherman appears, follows the fisherman entering his house.