Agnès Varda in California

The Criterion Collection continues its coverage of the 60-year career of director Agnès Varda, reaching into the vaults to exhume five of her lesser-known films made in the U.S. during two visits that were separated by more than a decade. The first three date from 1967-1969, when she lived in California with her husband Jacques Demy. Two are documentary shorts: Uncle Yanco, a charming portrait of an elderly free-spirited painter cousin living in a houseboat in Sausalito, and Black Panthers, a conventional but clearly sympathetic sketch of the titular group during its campaign for Huey Newton's release from jail. The least successful is the feature-length Lions, Love (…and Lies), a largely improvised would-be head-trip about two guys and a girl—veterans of Hair and Warhol movies—who gambol about in an L.A. mansion at a time when Bobby Kennedy is shot, visited by a Varda-like director who has dreams of a Hollywood career (the story quickly wears out its welcome, although Varda's freewheeling New Wave technique remains intriguing). The last two films are both very engaging: Mur Murs (1980) a kaleidoscopic montage of L.A. street murals and artists, and Documenteur (1981), which depicts a divorced French woman living in L.A. with her rambunctious 8-year-old son (played by Varda's own son Mathieu). All are relatively minor entries from Varda's impressive oeuvre, but they provide winning examples of her whimsical style. Part of Criterion's barebones Eclipse line, this set is warmly recommended. (F. Swietek)