Daguerréotypes

Agnès Varda's documentary about her own street. Varda lived on the rue Daguerre in Paris. The film's subject is the shopkeepers on it: the baker, the butcher, the tailor, the watchmaker, the perfumer and the owners of a café. The camera follows their working days, goes inside the shops and records quietly what they do. The starting point was entirely practical. She was looking after a small child at the time and could not go far from home. She took her electricity from the house and worked within the length of the cable; the geography of the film was determined directly by how long a cable was. The most interesting passage is a magic show: the shopkeepers from the street attend, and everyday faces appear suddenly in another context. Varda asks them all the same questions: where did you come from, how did you meet, what do you dream of. The answers are short, and often the women do not speak; the film records that silence too. A valuable example for anyone who likes documentary and the observation of daily life. For a viewer expecting incident or plot, this is an ordinary day on an ordinary street.