Le sabotier du Val de Loire. Jaques Demy. 1956.

This short is an extra on the Jacquot de Nantes blu ray, and I guess that makes sense, since it’s a documentary-ish (presumably) about the same clog maker that’s featured in that movie.

This is not a good documentary. Demy ladles the bathos so thickly over his poor objects I mean subjects I mean objects that they’re rather smothered.

I mean, it’s probably not a documentary documentary, but we get to see how clogs are made. Beyond that, it’s difficult to say whether any of the rest bears any relationship to reality.

My guess is: No.

Jacquot de Nantes. Agnès Varda. 1991.

I just watched the super-nostalgic Radio Days… and here’s an even more nostalgic movie.

It’s about Jacques Demy, Varda’s husband. Demy is a director, too, but I haven’t seen a single one of his movies, I think? So I just bought a box set, because I thought I should fix that. I mean, if he was married to Varda, he’s probably pretty good. She’s got good taste.

Varda inserts what I guess to be clips from Demy’s movies illustrating how his childhood was reflected in his movies (I’m guessing!), and the cheekily does this by

blinking these hands

at us. It’s great!

I do feel that gets less interesting as time passes. It goes from being a really cute reminisce about childhood and stuff to being very specifically about Demy becoming a director, and that’s not as interesting. It goes from personal to private.

It half brilliant and half kinda boring.

Radio Days. Woody Allen. 1987.

Rewatching all these Woody Allen movies, I’ve generally felt somewhat disappointed: None of them were as good as I remembered from when I was a teenager.

This one I do remember not liking very much… but I don’t understand why now. It’s so cute! OK, the gags aren’t as absurd as in his 70s movies, but they’re funny.

And you can’t but help enjoy the vicarious nostalgia on display here. The actors are having a good time, the look is right, and it’s got the right digressive structure for this sort of thing.

It’s an unassuming little delight, I think.