Cormac 👑’s review published on Letterboxd:
Varda gleans the extraordinary from out of the ordinary. The gold from out of the stones that make up her cobbled doorstep. It’s enough to make you think there’s a certain magic, a beauty to be seen in all of our lives, no matter how small or seemingly trivial. To watch Varda is to find out more about ourselves by virtue of hearing others spill their stories. To want to live our lives. Not in any way that screams lavish or loud or crude or colourful. Just enough to make you proud enough to want to tell it all to anyone brave enough to sit and listen, to take in an earful of what makes us, us.
To watch Varda is to learn more about what's right in front of you, on your windowsill and inside your little local corner shops. The smells, sights, the stories. The history behind each door and the lives which make up each mark on the pavement below. To appreciate what you already have, and what’s around you. While still realising the value in wanting more, the humble humanity in idealism for idealism’s sake.
To watch Varda is to enjoy the company of an old friend. One you’ve known all your life, and then some. To breathe in her small home-town sensibilities and inhale the soothing energy of a life well-spent and wear it as your own.
To watch Varda is to find peace and serenity in the downtime of society. To see it from the oft-forgotten other side, from behind the counters of those who keep us all afloat. The real human beings, the unsung heroes. Just getting by, surviving one day at a time. As the quaint charm of normalcy is given a new resonance under Queen Varda’s watchful eye for symmetry even in the stillest of still portraiture.
With visual patterns found in the human and the strictly earthborn. Where everyday rituals can evoke the rich social fabric of an entire world, a whole other way of being just to be. In a way that feels both rhythmic and completely unrehearsed, played by ear. Even stream-of-consciousness free-stylisms that recall the spontaneity of a life enjoyed.
To watch Varda is to feel all of your troubles melting away. As you feel that slight ache in your cheeks from that perpetual half-smile starting to gnaw. But in the best way.
To watch Varda is to love. To learn to love. Learn to love your fellow man, to care. Learn to love cinema. To love downtime, to share in the magic of everyday life. Learn to love yourself in all of your funny little quirks and idiosyncrasies. To love life. Learn to love the place that life has found for you, and you alone. But to love to dream of something more all the same. And to learn to love that that's okay.