In the distant past of April 2020, Chris and I dove deep into an episode of our podcast Cinema Dual on the films of French filmmaker Agnès Varda. Though technically not my first experience with Varda, that week of watching Varda’s movies was eye-opening, to such an extent that when Criterion announced they were going to release a Blu Ray box set of her complete filmography, I jumped at the chance to catch up on everything I had missed. Each post will cover 1 of the 15 discs in the set.

At the time I wrote this, the first trailer for The Matrix Resurrections had just been released. I don’t care to speculate on plot details or the film’s ultimate quality, but I am interested in the ways the filmmakers reflect and reinterpret the franchise with almost 18 years of hindsight and growth. It seems to have at least some bearing on the plot, as Neo and Trinity struggle to remember their past together, but may also have stronger implications on the film as a whole. What does it mean for Lana Wachowski to go back to this particular subject matter now? And what did it mean for Agnès Varda to do the same with our next film?

Continue reading “Varda by Jon – Part 12: La Glaneuse”