Lions Love (...and Lies) (1969)

Not rated, but Varda is going for shock value with this one.  There is such an abundance of nudity and sexuality in this movie that she wants you to be taken aback by the world of hippie culture.  On top of that, one of the only lucid parts of the movie surrounds a suicide where one of the actors / directors points out how absurd and exploitative the suicide is.  On top of that, the film surrounds the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. and the assassination attempt of Andy Warhol.  Kids also smoke.  

DIRECTOR:  Agnes Varda

See, I thought I was in Agnes Varda's sweet spot.  Maybe I just hold too little respect for experimental film.  But Lions Love (...and Lies)​ is so self-indulgent that I genuinely consider this movie to be crap.  I normally don't get so abrasive with films, especially when I hold a whole bunch of respect for the director. But my major complaint with Agnes Varda is that Varda throws so much at the wall to find out what sticks that we have to sit through all of the things that don't stick.

It's not that I'm not a fan of the hippie movement.  Honestly, hippie films are fascinating to me.  I mean, I watched all the Nicholson BBS films and, while I didn't love-love all of them, they were fascinating.  I mean, I wonder a lot about this era.  It's a kind of voyeurism because I do live such a straight-edged lifestyle that to watch an entire generation change society's relationship with hallucinogens is so fascinating to me.  I've also always been completely stumped that one of the most counter-culture generations could turn into the most conservative collectives out there.  But for every time that I get wrapped up in the sweet revolution that was happening with the hippie movement, I am also reminded why they annoyed the staunch traditionalists of the era.  

...and Agnes Varda probably didn't help the cause with this film.

Varda loves messing with the fourth wall.  She is always injecting herself into the film.  I don't really have a problem with that.  Especially considering that the retitling of this film is Lions Love (...and Lies) considering that the orignal title was only Lions Love, that ...and Lies part has to hold some meaning.  Varda has a Bertolt Brecht thing going on.  While Brecht always wanted to remind the audience that they were watching a play, Varda is in a constant state of reminding the viewer that this is the creation of an auteur.  In Lions Love, every time the story gained a sense of investment in the narration, Varda would include a peek behind the camera.  I couldn't help but make a connection stylistically to the I Am Curious movies with the constant reminder that someone is making a movie.  The issue I have is that Varda is an extremely talented narrative director.  She takes ideas that are so abstract and so emotional and does amazing things with them.  But she's also a director who keeps wanting to be a little bit more out there.  

With Lions Love, there's something almost lazy about the experiement going on.  I know.  I whine over things that I don't like and I don't assume that there's something deeper going on with Varda.  But Varda does this stuff with her short films a lot of the time.  There's something that she wants to capture that she almost seems unsure about.  With the case of Lions Love, she wanted to say something about hippies and Hollywood.  There's this need to talk about art, but it seems like Varda doesn't really know what she wants to say.  There are moments when she almost has something to explore, but much of that comes from Shirley Clark, who is definitely doing Varda a favor by being in this movie.  Shirley Clark is a director in her own right and is playing a heightened version of herself.  Honestly, the only person that I could tolerate in this film at all was Clark because she gives each moment verisimilitude.  There's an ironic bit there where Clark repremands herself for her acting chops, but she's also the only one who is not over the top.

What I feel that Varda wants to say is that Hollywood is soulless.  According to Lions Love, the real talent exists from the free spirits who simply create for the sake of creation.  The entire movie is playing with improv because that's what a real artist does, apparently.  But as someone who has seen a lot of student created content where the preparation seems undercooked, that's what it feels like watching this movie.  The three main actors --Viva, Jim, and Jerry --all seem to be having a good time.  But this seems a lot like these three finding their characters as opposed to serving the larger piece.  My kids and their cousins made a homemade Star Wars movie.  For little kids, it's actually pretty darned impressive.  But there are a few fight scenes.  And these fight scenes aren't choreographed.  (Look at me, dunking on kids who made a fun Star Wars movie in their spare time.)  Considering that every other scene followed a script and had reasonable edits, there were ten minute fight sequences without cuts.  It was kids hitting each other with sticks.  Lions Love is a lot like that.  Because the whole thing was improvised and only some of the improv actually had any value, it just dragged in these long sequences of the three naked finding mildly entertaining parts while Varda sped up the boring parts.

The funny thing is that the movie ends with confessionals from the three lead actors.  The two male actors seemed perfectly content being in this movie.  There's some introspection, to be sure.  But Viva?  Viva seems a little exploited with this movie.  Viva's confession closes the movie.  She doesn't seem sad that she did the movie.  Nothing in her voice seems to be accusing Agnes Varda for what happened during this film.  But Viva explains that she is fine with nudity, but is kind of tired of being asked to take her clothes off all of the time.  Similarly, she wanted to act.  From her perspective, she wanted to properly act.  She was desperate for a melodrama with some lines.  She keeps getting these experimental theatre parts where there is no script and she keeps having to improv.  Like, I kind of hate that Varda isn't listening to what her actors are looking for.  The only really compelling scene in the film is when Shirley confronts Varda for the absurdity of the suicide sequence.  Shirley Clarke, who has been through it when it comes to making movies, says that she would never harm herself if a movie fell through.  She understands that it is part of the process.  She calls Varda out, saying that the whole thing feels false.  Varda, with an almost false sense of confidence, plays the "The show must go on" part and tries stepping in for Clarke.  But the point of the story is that this whole thing feels fake and Varda is being the kind of director who is obsessed with her own genius instead of listening to her actors.  Between Viva and Clarke, there's something almost toxic about the film as a whole.

I don't know if Varda actually says anything concrete about Hollywood.  That last diatribe might be the most on-the-nose example of "telling, not showing."  Considering that these three reacting to the larger world of politics in conjunction with mortality shows how there's something false about the whole life of Bobby Kennedy, we don't really get a sense that these three have any real connection to the world of Hollywood.  That's almost a crime because Hollywood in Lions Love is a character in itself.  Ending the film on a diatribe about how Hollywood has no sense of history and acts as a Babylon seemingly comes out of nowhere.  I don't even credit the sequences of the studio execs fighting over final cut because these scenes don't even tie into the three in any meaningful way.  The voiceover can complain (in the most vital way) that Hollywood has no sense of history.  But all I got from the three was that they were insufferable and selfish. 

Like, I honestly don't know what those guys did for money.  They lived these "tune out" lives that almost spat in the faces of all of the people fighting for civil rights out there without ever commenting on it.  While I might not be the most knowledgable about Bobby Kennedy, I also know that he was a guy who tried to turn the tides in the Civil Rights movement.  And as moved as the trio was by his death, it was all because they viewed him from an entertainment perspective.  None of it was because he was a guy who tried to do the right thing.  Maybe Varda is aiming for this, but it seems almost disrespectful to the real Viva, Jim, and Jerry who seemed to encapsulate their real lives.  

It all reads as a mess.  I love when Varda hits, but it isn't when it is this kind of stuff.  It's weird how this kind of slight impoved absurdism works for "Uncle Yanco", but flops really hard in a feature length film. It is also upsetting that there might be two more feature length films on this disc.