Regarded as a masterpiece of the French New Wave and with a rare woman’s perspective, the singular portrayal of barely two hours in the life of French singer Florence Cléo Victoire is a sublime slice of cinema vérité as she awaits the results of medical tests.
Told in short chapters, Cléo (Corinne Marchand) fills in time. The intense claustrophobia of a Tarot reading sets the mood as a sad and pessimistic Cléo dreads the results. Shopping for hats with her housekeeper and companion Angèle (Dominique Davray), an impromptu rehearsal in her apartment with songwriter Michel Legrand or talking openly and honestly in a park with a soldier (Antoine Bourseiller) about to return to the hostilities in Algeria fill the negative spaces of her day.
With cameos from the likes of Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard, writer/director Agnès Varda has produced a simple, stylish, poetic feature where the everyday streets of (black and white) Paris are stunningly captured by the renowned documentary filmmaker’s occasional foray into fiction.
Rating: 83%
Director: Agnès Varda (Vagabond, Faces Places)
Writer: Agnès Varda (Vagabond, Last Tango in Paris)
Main cast: Corinne Marchand (Lola, Travels With My Aunt), Dominique Davray (Casque d’or, Les valseuses), Antoine Bourseiller (Masculin féminin, Les culottes rouges)
An Opinion or Two 