Word: varda
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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VAGABOND Agnes Varda's bleak portrayal of a runaway adolescent on her last legs is also a meditation on the unknowability of human motives and a tour de force for Actress Sandrine Bonnaire...
Directed by Agnes Varda...
...cool artsy line-and-shadow shot after another flashes on the screen. Wheatfields stretch into the distance, crooked fences reflect sunlit weeds, the world becomes one large poetic image as French director Agnes Varda transforms one girl's story into a supposedly universal metaphor; life is an aimless wander, meeting people and passing through places until you die. And, believe it or not, the film's beautiful cinematography and Saundrine Bonnaire's quiet naturalness as the girl actually make this work...
...director's major problem is that she cannot quite decide whether Mona is a person or a symbol. The fact that we learn nearly nothing about her personal history and that she rarely speaks or thinks would indicate that she is a metaphor, not an individual. But occasionally, Varda strays from her reservedly elegant direction and portrays Mona in human-dilemma situations. These are often very moving in themselves. For example, just as Mona begins to develop a believable emotional relationship with a man, his friends return and make her leave...
...inconsistency of the film, not the weakness of specific moments, that detract from its effectiveness. At the end of the film, Varda suddenly and incongruously makes us feel sad when we watch Mona sicken, cry and freeze. One could try to explain away this sadness as a more universal quality than just sympathy for a pathetic girl. Maybe what you feel is regret at man's mortality and realization of the unavoidable limits of freedom, but this is pushing...