In her last film, Agnes Varda reviews her art

I'm guessing that when Agnes Varda, who died last March at the age of 90, began assembling Varda by Varda, she might have sensed that she was writing her own obituary. The result: a biography of a creative life.

That's not to say that there's anything morbid, self-congratulatory or nostalgic about Varda's movie. Varda by Varda turns out to be a catalog of an artist's process of invention -- not in any self-serving way, but in a manner that underscores Varda's commitment to an idea: Creation should be shared. Her final movie can be taken as an act of generosity. She had things to tell us.

At times, Varda can be seen talking to audiences as if to underscore that she's not interested in solitary reflection. As always, Varda insists on engagement.

Varda uses clips from many of her films, analyzing them and explaining how they developed. Among the features she discusses: Cleo from 5 to 7 and Vagabond.

We learn that Varda's later documentary work tended to rely on streamlined, simplified production methods, sometimes only the director and a small video camera that she operated. Varda followed her eye where it took her, often capitalizing on serendipitous moments that found her camera.

In her last decade, Varda branched out from filmmaking to become what she calls a "visual artist." Her installations can be whimsical or sharp -- or both. They make you understand that only death could have halted Varda’s voracious interest in the world around her, in things that can be seen or touched and, above all, captured with a camera. Even in old age, Varda's eyes remained open to new possibilities.

As an artist, she never stopped growing.

Agnes Varda and friend take to the road

Faces Places — a documentary by Agnes Varda and a photographer known simply as JR — teams the 89-year-old director with a 33-year-old photographer who specializes in pasting large-format photographs on the least likely of places. Varda and JR set out on what appears to be a casual road trip. They stop, meet the locals, shoot photographs and paste them onto walls, shipping containers, large rocks and on the exterior of a decaying village that never had been inhabited. But if you think about what you’re watching, you’ll probably realize that this free-wheeling look at the traveling relationship between an older filmmaker with failing eyesight and a plucky young artist must have taken lots of planning — not to mention obtaining permissions to film in odd places. An example: A factory that manufactures hydrochloric acid. The relationship between Varda, who has adopted a two-tone hairstyle, and JR, who never removes his sunglasses, has some mildly testy moments (Varda doesn't always like JR's jokes), but mostly the two seem to enjoy each other’s company as they travel about celebrating and monumentalizing the lives of ordinary people. Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, a Varda compatriot from New Wave days, hovers over the movie, although he appears only a clip from one of Varda's films. At one point, JR pushes Varda through the Louvre in a wheelchair, paying homage to a scene Godard filmed for Band of Outsiders. The trip concludes when Varda and JR visit Godard’s home in Rolle, Switzerland. Godard refuses to answer the door, although he has scrawled a note on one of his house's windows. Her feelings hurt, Varda leaves her own note: “No thanks for your bad hospitality.” This little scene adds a note of sadness, a feeling that the past — no matter how vital it felt at the time — can’t be recaptured. At this point, JR senses Varda’s mood of melancholic acceptance. He tries to boost her spirits. But we know that for all its celebratory moments, nothing will overcome the feeling of evanescence that haunts this little movie: The art that JR makes surely will be ruined by weather and if he's lucky, he too eventually will experience the debilities of old age. But there’s nothing morbid in either the movie or in Varda’s attitude toward the conclusion of an amazing and well-lived life. At one point, she says she’s even looking forward to death because “that will be that.” No more films. No more adventures, but an ending that Varda seems to be approaching without regret and without abandoning her desire to live every moment until that final one.