As Part of its Nouvelle Vague season, Les plages D'Agnes showed at the BFI recently. It’s the first film I'd seen by film director, Agnes Varda, an autobiographical documentary of her life, her art, and her favourite places, beaches, some of which she revisits, and some of which she recreates in alternative spaces; for example, the market streets of a quiet port town are filled with sand and sand castles, around stalls, traders, shoppers et al, as a brass band marches down the street and Agnes directs, and reminisces. Her memories are recreated.

The beach of her childhood opens the film. Somewhere in Belgium, a seaside North Sea resorts ridiculed by the locals for their grey indivisibility. I do not know if this is so as I only made it to the beach in Antwerp, ha or rather the sandy banks of the River Schelde, - but close to Ostende, is this wide and windy ‘first’ beach, an expanse of sand and sea she exploits and manipulates (by) placing mirrors, randomly and in relation to one another across the expanse. Mirrors of different size, shapes, surface and design, face every which way, and each other; reflections, refractions, reflections of reflections, (multiple) views within views, and the almost invisible curve of the horizon, and real vista, actual beach behind, co-exist in widescreen; one view is all views, and none, not real, manipulation of the real create endless possibility; the feeling, my feeling at the beach of boundlessness, hope, and optimism, as sea comes into land, and the mind drifts out to sea, and the unknown, anything could be out there, wherever the current and winds lead you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnès_Varda

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1129435/

Beaches, bathers and bathing

This time, 3 years ago. The other side of the world, winter, and the climate is/was the same as here. Lukewarm masquerades as summer; summer is mostly a notion, and though I am a summer baby, I struggle to sizzle, most likely because the sun rarely complies.

I remember my first walk on the beach that year. After several years absence, home again, over the dunes and ricketty bridge, Tallow Beach, windswept, and arduous under foot. Soft clumps of sand, a heavy walk, one I wished would move more quickly, as the day chased away the sun. Turning back to face home, blasted face, the full force of the wind, pushing me back with each step forward, der dum, der dum, the sky deepen, at some point the sun had set. Navy, black, thick air enclosing, the wind howling; trudge, trudge, effort, no thought. A gust, wet, and then another, strong, a silent roar, and rain, falls, the sky full. I am soaked. I am nearly home. Exhilerated, crazy, my whole body sunk into itself in response, droplet covered periphery shivering. There is nowhere to run to, no way to avoid this soaking. I do not care. I simply laugh, and shake my hair, and shake my hair some more.