An intriguing, if somewhat frustrating, introduction to the work of idiosyncratic, genre-hopping French photojournalist and film-maker Raymond Depardon. A current project sees the 71-year-old meandering through casually retro French villages, freeze-framing the not-quite-buried past. In between, we get clips from his extensive archive. Such snippets always look liquid fresh yet, stripped of context, can feel inconsequential.
The exceptions are scenes pulled from his 1974 documentary about Giscard d'Estaing and his 1996 vox pop, Cafe le Gymnase. In both cases, the subjects offer up their thoughts with crushing honesty and leave us dying to know more.
Journal was co-directed by Depardon's wife and collaborator, Claudine Nougaret, who we see in old footage, pretty as a pixie. This portrait of her quietly obsessive mate has moments of magic, but you can't help feeling that an outsider would have fashioned something with more bite.
