The Virgin of Pessac 79

A decade after making THE VIRGIN OF PESSAC, Jean Eustache filmed another documentary about his hometown’s annual coronation of a young woman of moral integrity. The differences between the two portraits of the same ritual are subtle yet telling: The selection process is slightly more fraught in the 1970s, as civic leaders are more concerned with the current economic depression than with broader social upheaval. In THE VIRGIN OF PESSAC 79, the ceremony also provides a stage on which progressive changes are made official, with a local order, the Fellows of Pleasant Pessac, inducting their first female member. Finally, the second time around, Eustache employs color photography, an appropriate choice given the event’s verdant spring setting.