Daguerreotypen – Leute aus meiner Straße (1975)

Daguerreotypen – Leute aus meiner Straße: Directed by Agnès Varda. With Lucien Bossy, Leance Debrossian, Marcelle Debrossian, Robert François. Portraits of the people that occupy the small shops of the Rue Daguerre, Paris, where the filmmaker lived.

“Daguerréotypes (1976) was written and directed by Agnès Varda.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe movie gives us portraits of the people that occupy the small shops of the Rue Daguerre, in Paris, where the filmmaker lived. Rue Daguerre is in the 14th arrondissement. It is, indeed, named in honor of Louis Daguerre, the inventor of one of the earliest photographic techniques. Photographs made using this process are called daguerreotypes, so Vardau0026#39;s title has a double meaning. Her film is a photographic image of the street on which she lived, which was named after someone who made photographic images possible.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAlthough I think Rue Daguerre is more touristic now, in 1976 it was a residential street filled with small shops. Some of the shops were basic–a bakery, a butcher shop. But some were more specialized, like a perfumery. The shops are run by middle-aged couples–the classic French bourgeoisie. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eVarda brings us into these shops, where the people know her and where they apparently talk very freely with her. To an outsider, theyu0026#39;re just people who run a shop. To Varda, they are all people with an interesting story to tell. They tell her their stories, and she shares them with us. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is movie in which not much happens, and there really isnu0026#39;t any plot. The film is a documentary about a time, a place, and the people who lived at that time in that place. Varda is a talented filmmaker who saved that time, that place, and those people for us to see. Her talent shines through, even 40 years later.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWe saw Daguerréotypes at the excellent Dryden Theatre in the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY. It was part of an Agnès Varda retrospective, sponsored by Rochester Institute of Technology and the Eastman Museum. It will work very well on a small screen.”