The beautiful and moving penultimate Agnes Varda film: Faces, Places

The penultimate Agnes Varda film (2017) - Faces, Places (hats off to whoever came up w/ the English title; the Fr. is Visages, Villages) - is a totally enjoyable and surprising documentary about her public-art project, in which she joins forces w/ a 33-year-old (AV was pushing 90) French graffiti artist who goes by JR. The film shows how the two of them develop a concept and then bring it to fruition through public art: They roam the French countryside in JR's van, which looks, amusingly, like a bigger-than-life camera; they stop in various town squares, churches, restaurants, factories, meet the local people, and get permission to photograph them; the van has a supersized printer than turns the photos into huge blow-ups - literally the size of a country barn - that AV and JR and their team post on walls, sidings, water towers, etc. In the process they (and we) get to know the "villagers" and in each case the villagers learn more about their community and come together in awe - sometimes in tears - when they see the posted public art. Much of the beauty of the film involves the bonding - and sometimes petty spats and disappointments - as the 2 of them develop their ideas; all told, they get along beautifully, and each brings his/her genius to this project; they are kindred spirits, experimentalists and anthropologists, who push the boundaries of art, and we really get the sense that this film shows Varda handing on a legacy to the next generation of public artists. Most of all, it's highly unusual to see in a work of art the very process of the creation, from germination to flowering, so to speak. The film has many moments of humor (e.g., asked by one of the subjects how the two of them met, JR says "through a dating app" - as Varda bristles) as well as some real pathos, especially toward the end, as Varda increasingly recognizes that her career, and her life, are nearing the end (she died in 2019).