The World of Jacques Demy

The World of Jacques Demy is a major addition to films about filmmakers, and achieves its purpose in making the viewer immediately want to see the key films again.

Noted French filmmaker Demy's wife Agnes Varda helmed this intensely personal tribute to her late husband. It is her third such tribute and is the only one to look deeply into Demy's vision as a director and his filmmaking techniques.

Referring to his love of Hollywood musicals and a working-class background that fostered enduring dreams of making movies one day, Varda creates an homage to a filmmaker's imagination. It doesn't hurt that she was also in love with him.

[Varda's] film slides in and out of [Demy's] career and personal life with a French sensibility that puts no great stock in exact chronological order or clearly announced shifts from one film to the next. At times this is annoying, but it pays to keep up, or if necessary back up a bit, to get the measure of an elegantly romantic filmmaker with a strong feel for nostalgia and chance. [09 Dec 2003, p.E1]