A girl, whose father is from Greece, studies ancient art in France. The film was made for television but never broadcast for political reasons related to its portrayal of Greeks. A work print was screened in Belgium in 1971, and the film is now available in reconstructed form.
Навсикая, 瑙西卡
Belgium
France
Greece
Syros International Film Festival
France
Belgium
France
Greece
A film that serves as a manifesto against Greece's dictatorship, a love story, and a touristic promotional video all at the same time.
The cinematography is fantastic, filmed in a way that makes you feel like you're viewing actual domestic tapes from someone rather than a film, culminating in an avant-garde yet undeniably realistic picture. Conceptually, the film is equally interesting as a work of nonfiction that helps us to understand the Greeks' predicament during this era, both their struggles and their dreams. Unfortunately, I was never able to connect with the rest of the love story and other aspects, plus it's one of those 90-minute films that felt like it went on for hours.
All in all, Varda fans may be delighted, but for the rest of you who are looking for an interesting documentary from the director, may I suggest the one about potatoes.
TODAY SCHEDULE
Nausicaa
Bab Azis
Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins
Tokyo Fist
i wish agnès got to finish this film as intended. it's kind of hard to judge this because the only existing copy is an unfinished workprint, but i just absolutely adored the parts that blended documentary elements of agnès talking about her own life and the narrative story based off her first love and early 20s. the political segments talking about greece were interesting too, but i almost feel like it should have been a separate short film. anyway... i love you agnès and am currently crying over the young girls of rochefort poster in her character's room that shows up after she talks about finding love 💖💖💖
Varda is proudly political here, and personal as ever. Her documentary style bleeds into her narrative filmmaking in a manner which she’d refine in the coming decades to much greater effect. Agnès’ youthfulness was what made her inspiring, but Nausicaa perhaps suffers from a being the frantic work of a young filmmaker: it’s a naive juggling act of too many styles and too little structure. It’s theatre, autobiography, talk heads testimony and political broadcasting all at once. It’s spinning too many plates and leaving the audience dizzy. I like to think this frantic documentary is the product of urgency - to get the message of Greek plight public ASAP - but the core message is somewhat lost amidst a crowd of tangential ideas.
This was Varda’s first movie back in France after her late 60s American stint and the French channel that commissioned it decided midway through they didn’t really want to air a political feature and pulled support, so this went unreleased outside a few festival screenings and feels unfinished. It deals with Greece political crisis through Varda’s personal perspective and shifts between autobiographical fiction, essay film and documentary. It is more successful as film that is thinking about its own process of representing a political subject and benefits from Varda usual facility to mix her curiosity towards others and a very first person perspective. The self and the world inseparable as much as it shifts between urgency and self reflexive. The…
A fascinating made for TV film from Varda that now only exists in a seemingly non final form. The work deals directly with Greek politics and was never aired. It was then lost and this now viewable version found later.
It feels disjointed but a lot of this feels inherent to the premise. This mixes a very loose fictional narrative, dealing with Greek immigration to France, with pieces to camera from Greek immigrants — and other. These documentary parts are the most compelling, though some of the wider footage is interestingly experimental.
It is a bold and urgent work but a deeply uneven one. A work of real worth though and, due to its history, an object of real fascination.
A virtually unknown, semi-autobiographical TV film from the legendary Agnès herself that was pulled from production for political reasons. As a result it’s a bit unfocused, yet I still found it watchable and captivating (mostly due to her cinéma vérité approach). Plus it’s clearly a very personal subject matter for Varda given her Greek heritage - which really sucks that it wasn’t given a proper release from her because she had a ton of things to show about Greek politics at the time and the Greek diaspora in France. Despite all of that, her most important and consistent ingredient persists throughout this film, which is her compassion. While her work was pretty personal, she always observed other people with awe and let them tell their own stories, which is truly what made her special.
Fim de semana em honra de Agnès Varda (1928 - 2019) filme #7
Holy shit! Petardo censurado sobre a ditadura militar na Grécia que vale muito a pensa ser assistido esse fim de semana no Brasil também.
Como usual, Varda mistura cinema veritè com ficção, desta vez encenando a própria biografia da época em que era estudante de artes em Paris e sobre sua própria ascendência grega e o resultado é de tirar o fôlego em termos de cinema político.
MKO.
I am floored. This such a cool hidden gem in the Varda filmography. A made for TV critique of the Greek junta, French authorities seized the original reel of Nausicaa and did not allow it to be broadcast, even though a public French television network, the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF), seems to have commissioned it. The French government at the time supplied planes to the junta, so there was a conflict of interest. Hmm. Well this sounds awfully familiar. *Cough* the United States and Israel? *Cough*. As one example? Not that it is common for the US government to censor works of solidarity for Palestine, buuut maybe it happens more than we realize. I won't get too political…
Le film censuré d'Agnès Varda, retiré de ses mains, pour des raisons politiques, alors qu'elle était en train de le compléter dans une salle de montage, jamais diffusé et perdu pendant des décennies, jusqu'à ce que le workprint soit retrouvé en Belgique. C'est un film incomplet donc, qui pourrait perdre encore un peu de gras par-ci par-là, un brin confus par moments (certaines scènes ne sont des pages de scénario filmés) mais ce qui retient l'attention c'est à quel point tous les éléments qui constituent un film d'Agnès Varda sont réunis ici : mi-fiction mi-documentaire, à la fois personnel et universel, daté et intemporel, vox-pop de gens ordinaires dans la rue côtoient Gérard Depardieu dans son quasi-premier rôle (C'était alors…
☆"Torture is just politics by another means."☆
My Journey into the Films of Agnès Varda – Part 19 of 57
I think it's worth reproducing the Criterion Collection description in full for this one:
Agnès Varda wrote the script of this semi-autobiographical love story, a reaction to the military putsch in Greece, in 1967. After receiving approval to shoot the film for French television in 1970, her elements were confiscated, her postproduction lab was broken into, and the entire film was eventually seized and suppressed. Varda never received a formal explanation from the government. The Royal Belgian Cinematheque preserved the sole existing workprint of the film, which is presented here.
Pique your interest?
Mine too, though it's fair to call…
Dug it. It’s an unfinished workprint so understandably rough, but the narrative, documentary, and cabaret segments complement each other remarkably well.
A lot of people are talking about how the film seems to have been hastily pieced together, and I don't disagree. I, however, think it gives this very political film more of a punk feel. It feels so angry and sympathetic. Agnes absolutely needed to say these things and even if it doesn't come together smoothly, I don't think that makes the final product any less valuable.
