Daguerreotypes (1975) is a French documentary made by Agnes Varda about the shops in her neighbourhood, specifically the street of Rue Daguerre. Documenting a time and place, Varda narrates that her interest began with the older couple who run the local perfumery/chemist. In one shot, they stare out of the shopfront window like ghosts, particularly the wife who is memorably miserable-looking, compared in the narration to possibly a “prisoner”. Yet spending time with them – and the other shops on the street including a butcher, a barber, clock-maker, driving instructor, seamstress – they emerge as people, all of whom have moved elsewhere (many from country towns and villages) to work in the city. Varda has an interest in who they are beyond their everyday work role, and yet how they become defined by it, turning up to open the shopfront, standing there awaiting trade, and maybe sneaking in a nap (as the butcher does) in the backroom.
Varda’s interest in time extends to recording the everyday interactions with customers, capturing details that might go unnoticed, such as the extra care the butcher takes cutting off the pieces of meat people order, or the time it takes for the chemist to locate a specific perfume in the cluttered shelves behind him. Another structural conceit is filming a neighbourhood magician’s act, which the movie intercuts between interview segments and documentary observation, finding visual connections and echoes between the magician’s tricks and money changing hands, for example, or hands exchanging goods. The people we identify as one thing – a barber, a chemist – turn up as customers in other shops or audience members in the magic act.
Much like Varda’s other documentaries, Daguerreotypes remains inquisitive, open-hearted and playful, asking each of the workers questions about how they met their partners (most of whom also work in the same trade or help run the shop) or what they dream about (either dreams of escape or about work itself). It made me think of and reflect about the neighbourhood stores, which are few and far between these days, run by old-timers in places that might seem pokey and left behind by time, but retain a sense of personality and some charm regardless. Obviously these are people that Varda would see everyday, so she remains respectful and curious in her portrait of them all, and the wider street, even if it is a bit sceptical about everyday work, and the culminative effect of the day to day routine. Available on Mubi. Recommended.
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