Agnes Varda's Short Film

Agnes Varda - Plaisir d'amour en Iran (1976)

The short film is set in Middle East, Iranian atmosphere. Video montage technique is used throughout the film. Montages include environment of the mosques, details of Persian architecture, wall paintings, and a couple talking.

Mainly, there are four parts in total. The first part was of the couple

Narrator's voice over described the couple in a narrative way, in relationship with the environment. She described them as 'dazzled by the place and excited about each other'.

The couple's voiceover can be heard as we see details the walls, interior and exterior of the Mosques.

Diegetic and non-diegetic sounds are introduced in the film. Sound of the fountain can be heard when video montage of architecture and the details started and ended when montages of wall paintings started with and without its presence.

Narrator stated, at the ending part 'The most titillating place for lovers… even if they are charters in a film' and the couple held hands and walked up to the camera. The ending part has concluded that, in my opinion, the film has two layers; (love) story of French woman and Iranian man, whose conversations were metaphorically sexually. The woman compared male and female bodies to the architecture.

"Funny, the roofs are like boobs… yours minaret's not bad either…"

As the narrator said "They found that the architecture measured up their voluptuous emotions..."

The French woman's character appeared to be fun-loving, lively and open up from what she said and and the way she dressed in floral black and white floral dress, and in bright yellow. She said to the man "You're so prudish about your sexual things." At the middle of the film, after listening to her lover recited Iranian poems, she took a roll of tissue paper from the toilet and wrote him a poem. "Pity it's not silk." showed that she had a sense of humor.

Differences between cultures, two of them stood out from other Iranian people...