Faces Places (Visages, villages - 2017)

Merveilluex! Jack and I loved this documentary in which 89-year-old French filmmaker Agnès Varda teams up with her 33-year-old countryman, an artist known as JR, to take pictures of faces (visages), make huge paper prints, and paste them in places, or towns (villages) around France. The night before the Oscars this won Best Documentary at the Spirit Awards, then it lost the Oscar race to Icarus, which we also loved. We rented this one on iTunes right after the awards (it's also available on youtube and Amazon and via DVD on netflix) and didn't need to darken the room much, because it's almost all brightly lit and gorgeous, shot by seven different cinematographers.

Varda, a sprightly, elfin person with a Buster Brown haircut that's half white-half auburn (scroll down in the article to see her at a younger age with the same haircut), has been making movies for over 50 years. I think I saw One Sings, the Other Doesn't (L'une chante, l'autre pas - 1977), and probably didn't see Cleo from 9 to 5 (Cléo de 5 à 7 - 1962), Le Bonheur (1965), nor Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi - 1985), among her more famous work. Her daughter Rosalie Varda produced the movie and shared the Spirit award.

The music by Matthieu Chedid (new to me) hasn't been released in any format but you can get a taste from watching the trailer.

You don't need our recommendation. Its Rotten Tomatoes averages are 91% from audiences and a cool 100% from critics. Definitely put this in your queue.