I am playing the role of a little old lady, pleasantly plump and talkative, telling her life story, says Agnès Varda as she guides us through her memories, reflecting on her life as an artist and filmmaker, with beaches as the connective thread. Memories like these compose an identity, make life understood.
The North Sea and its sand is the start of me, of what I more or less know of myself. If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes. If we opened me up, we’d find beaches, she says. Varda and her film crew set up an installation of mirrors along the North Sea shore in Belgium. Each mirror is a different size and frame; some are stuck in the sand and others on easel stands. The mirrors face each other, creating reflections of reflections that fragment the landscape and introduce unique perspectives of the beach. Varda films herself and her film crew through these mirrors. So many people are willing to enter something imaginary, Varda remarks. I’m reminded of painters who needed mirrors to compose their self-portraits. Indeed, The Beaches of Agnès (Les plages d’Agnès, a 2008 documentary in French) is a moving self-portrait. The installation is a metaphor for cameras and their ability to reflect, record. When glass breaks down, it becomes sand. Mirrors, before mirrorless camera systems, were an integral part of the photographic process, reflecting what one saw through the viewfinder, which then became imprinted on celluloid. In a darkroom I would put an exposed negative into an enlarger, flash light through it and onto photographic paper, which I then placed into a developing bath, eagerly watching splotches of black and gray form coherent shapes, objects, faces, landscapes.
Memory is like an ocean. Thoughts suddenly resurface that were hidden, lost in the depths. We are observers rather than makers of what emerges. I was holding my cousin Danny in the ocean when a set of large waves approached us. Do you remember how to hold your breath? I asked Danny. We went under twice, each wave pushing us closer to shore. I lifted Danny high above my head. Tommy, one of our older cousins, grabbed Danny, and I was dragged into the surf once more. I emerged, my nose and ears clogged with seawater. The ocean was just as calm as when we entered. Memory is unavoidable, arriving without warning.
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