Faces Places

It's been a disrupted TIFF for me this year with some significant family health issues occupying the foreground for much of this week.

I had a brief window in which to see a film and it was a perfect restorative to the stresses of the week. "Faces Places" was jointly directed by Agnes Varda, an octogenarian French film-maker whose previous work I've enjoyed and JR, a thirty-something photographer who is famous for taking pictures of people and pasting huge enlargements in public spaces (JR was involved in one of Toronto's Nuit Blanche events from a couple of years ago). The film represented both the combination of each of their talents, and framed it within a conversation between two friends about a host of subjects.

And it was beautifully playful in documenting the travels of two very different companions around the French countryside. In a festival that seemed to have a lot of films that stretched well beyond 150 minutes, Faces was concise, entertaining and thought-provoking.

 Watch for this at the Hot Docs (I believe it's coming up fairly soon).