Du côté de la côte

The same Criterion disc featuring the 1965 masterpiece "Le Bonheur" also features a copy of Varda's sarcastic 1958 travelogue Du côté de la côte, a 25-minute portraits of the Côte d'Azur mixing beautiful color footage of Cannes, Nice, etc with witty and sometimes nasty narration/commentary by an unseen man and a woman that serves to condemn the shallow luxury of the place. A fascinating piece that deserves more attention in this director's great filmography, and an interesting work in the very French category of essayistic films that can on one level be read as "serious" (travel documentary) but on another as a deconstruction of the same subject.