“Like many of Varda’s similarly themed explorations, the results are more than they initially seem, casual anthropology with a strongly humanist bent, resulting in a film that’s fueled more by compassion than curiosity.” (Slant)

Varda lived on the Rue Daguerre in Paris’s 14th arrondissement for more than 50 years. After the birth of her son, Mathieu Demy, she made the most of having to stay close to home. She ran a long electric line from her house (she called it an “umbilical cord”) and took her camera and microphone out to interview local shopkeepers and other neighbors, empathetically asking questions that reveal the theater of the mundane. The result, her first documentary feature, is an intimate examination of a subculture and way of life that have since gone nearly extinct.