Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.
Varda's intimate documentary portrait of the Rue Daguerre shopkeepers is a singular work of cinematic observation — unhurried, tender, and deeply personal. The cinematography captures the textures of everyday Parisian life with exceptional warmth and compositional care, while the film's conception (Varda literally plugging her camera into her home's electricity to stay close during her pregnancy) gives it a uniquely constrained and intimate novelty. The 'acting' of the real shopkeepers carries an authentic charm. However, the film is deliberately plotless and episodic, which is its strength philosophically but a limitation narratively, and the ending arrives without strong resolution, fading rather than concluding.