L'opéra-mouffe (1958) User Reviews

An early short film by the great Agnès Varda

[Red-125 · 8/10 · 19 February 2016]

L'opéra-mouffe (original title) was shown in the U.S. as Diary of a Pregnant Woman (1958). The filmmaker Agnès Varda directed this homage to Rue Mouffetard, in Paris' 5th Arrondissement.

I think the original French title works better for this movie. It's true that the neighborhood is seen through the eyes of a pregnant woman, but I think the intent of the film is to give us a feeling for the everyday life in this non-prepossessing neighborhood in Paris.

Varda uses her usual technique of casually showing us the people and events in the neighborhood, and letting us draw our own conclusions. Nothing dramatic happens during the short (16 minute) film. However, at the end, I felt that I had learned something about the way that neighborhood looked and sounded at that time.

We saw this film on the large screen at the excellent Dryden Theatre of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY. It was part of an Agnès Varda retrospective sponsored by the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Eastman Museum. It will work well on the small screen.

Plot-less, camera fun by the mistress of cinema

[Felonious-Punk · 6/10 · 28 October 2011]

The movie is a feast for the eyes, we stroll through a French town from the perspective of a pregnant woman. It would be interesting to know whether Agnes Varda, the director, was herself pregnant during the shooting or editing of this movie. The images flow in groups of different types, for example, there are set of images organized by the shape of the images, there are sets organized by similar movement, there are sets organized by meaning. It is all very hypnotic. There is also a surprising amount of nudity for the year of its production. As far as my experience goes, it has more nudity than any movie before it and any movie after it until 1966's "I am Curious-Yellow". This movie reminds me of the experiments made during the early days of the movie camera and also the early avant-garde movies of France and Russia. It's well done, but it doesn't offer much beyond what those earlier movies achieved.

Also the original soundtrack is a unique and interesting counterpoint.

The Pregnant Poet

[EdgarST · 10/10 · 24 April 2007]

A bit overshadowed by the works of male filmmakers of the late 1950s and early Sixties in France –as Godard, Chabrol, Truffaut and Resnais-, that helped to found the "nouvelle vague", Varda is nevertheless known as the "grandmother" of this film movement, with her praised first feature "La Pointe-Courte" (1956) and this beautiful short made in Paris while she was pregnant, a homage to the Mouffetard street in Paris and its people, to love, life and old age, which she defined as "neighborhood cinéma." A fresh and free-form exercise of images, songs and inter-titles, it confirmed the promise of a talented and innovative director, who went on to make more remarkable films as "Cléo de 5 à 7" (1961), "Sans toit ni loi" (1985), and, at 72, "Les glaneurs et la glaneuse."

Typical french

[Anders-3 · 9 September 2001]

Agnes Varda made this little movie in 1958. According to herself, the reason was that the winter was very cold and she was worried about the homeless people. So she went to L'mouffe Street with her camera and started to shoot.

This film about ordinary people; alcoholics, drunks, people selling groceries and flowers, people who buys groceries and flowers, lovers and others. Maybe they dont look to good, but this is how people look. A nice little film with a very french touch.

Great Short Movie

[mrdonleone · 10/10 · 12 December 2019]

So anyway I hope I can we say of course the people are great when pregnant women are dying. Nathan is a while and then of course you say the history and how they wear and then where they are bone and then they are old and all these beautiful things on the as a fascination for everything that is beautiful everything that is naked everything that is 6 everything that is ugly and old and dying and the whole circle of life and in this we can definitely say that is beautiful movie is one of the greatest ever made of the short moves of the. Is beautiful of course Paris is it Paris we want to but of course I need to be discovered that it might be where is a friend's or something and of course we discovered it it is all the point of Life the movie is about life and Inez drive that has done a great thing about all of this that it is beautiful and that's just what it is you want what can we say it's it's just magnificent and I'm proud to be born in the neighborhood near to her in sha Allah Allahu Akbar and all Muslims think she is great

Street impressions from France

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 10 July 2017]

"L'opéra-mouffe" or "Diary of a Pregnant Woman" is a French black-and-white short film from 1958, so this one will have its 60th anniversary next year. Writer and director is Agnès Varda and this is one from her early career efforts as she was under the age of 30 back then and she is still alive today approaching 90. It is a black-and-white movie and reminded me a bit of the very early days of filmmaking at the end of the 19th century and very early 20th century because street recordings were very common back then and you could see the surprise in the people's for being filmed as they did not understand this medium really. So if it is a tribute to these days, then the idea is honorable. But I am not so sure. Honestly overall I did not really enjoy the watch here. there are some nice shots admittedly, but I personally found the images without people somehow more memorable and more interesting than those including people. That's just subjective obviously. Oh yeah, there is no narration here, you see a word or two in French occasionally, but it is perfectly fine to watch this without subtitles. The chansons included here also won't need translation, but really are more about getting you in the mood. Still, I have to give it a thumbs-down. It did not get me curious about other Varda works.