Cleo From 5 to 7 (PG.)
Directed by Agnes Varda.
Starring Corinne Marchand, Antoine Boursellier, Michel Legrand, Dominique Davray, Dorothee Blanck. 1962. Black and White. French with subtitles. 90 mins.
It starts with the lead character, Cleo (Marchand), receiving a death sentence. A tarot card reading is full of death and intimations of illness. When she has gone the Reader says she could see the cancer. For the next 90 minutes – it’s really Cleo from 5 to 6.30 – she wanders around that vibrant, black and white Paris that exists only in films of the Nouvelle Vague, killing time as she waits for an appointment with the doctor to get the results of her tests. It’s like a non violent episode of 24.
Watching The Beaches of Agnes, a retrospective Let’s-do-my-South-Bank-Show-right-here-on-the-sand effort, I formed the notion that maybe Varda wasn’t a great artist but an expert, but rather batty, networker whose real gift was for getting on with talented people.
Her film neither supports nor disproves that theory. It has a have-a-bash energy and daring: in the street scenes onlookers stare straight into the camera sometimes. At points though you may think she seems to be trying out ideas for the sake of it.
Directed by Agnes Varda.
Starring Corinne Marchand, Antoine Boursellier, Michel Legrand, Dominique Davray, Dorothee Blanck. 1962. Black and White. French with subtitles. 90 mins.
It starts with the lead character, Cleo (Marchand), receiving a death sentence. A tarot card reading is full of death and intimations of illness. When she has gone the Reader says she could see the cancer. For the next 90 minutes – it’s really Cleo from 5 to 6.30 – she wanders around that vibrant, black and white Paris that exists only in films of the Nouvelle Vague, killing time as she waits for an appointment with the doctor to get the results of her tests. It’s like a non violent episode of 24.
Watching The Beaches of Agnes, a retrospective Let’s-do-my-South-Bank-Show-right-here-on-the-sand effort, I formed the notion that maybe Varda wasn’t a great artist but an expert, but rather batty, networker whose real gift was for getting on with talented people.
Her film neither supports nor disproves that theory. It has a have-a-bash energy and daring: in the street scenes onlookers stare straight into the camera sometimes. At points though you may think she seems to be trying out ideas for the sake of it.
