Cléo from 5 to 7 (1961)
Saturday, August 5th, 2006
Written & Directed by: Agnès Varda
Cast: Corinne Marchand, Antoine Bourseiller, Dominique Davray, Dorothée Blank, Michel Legrand
Runtime: 90 min.
Rating: N/A
Agnes Varda is the forgotten member of the French New Wave, if she’s a member at all. In either case, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Cléo From 5 to 7 has not lost an ounce of its vitality, beauty or technique since it was released in 1961. On the surface, two real-time hours (that are actually an hour and a half) in the life of a pretty Parisian singer awaiting hospital results, the film proves how useless plot descriptions can be and how important images and sound—not plot—are to great cinema. Starting with an inventive opening sequence set in the house of a fortune teller, Varda transports us to Paris in 1961 and allows us to live with or as Cléo in this magical land of reflections, mirrors and shiny things. In one scene, for example, Cléo takes a fancy to buying a hat. She goes into an upscale shop, tries on a few hats, and picks out he favourite. All of this culminates in a tracking shot, from the outside, of the shop’s long front window that starts transparent (showing Cléo inside), changes to reflective (showing the busy street as a reflection in the window), and ends up transparent again.
This theme of perspective and focus is key to Cléo From 5 to 7. In a film-within-a-film that features Jean-Luc Godard and his once-wife Anna Karina, a man watches his lover die only to discover that what he thinks has happened has only been an illusion brought on by the dark-tinted sunglasses he’s wearing! So, too, Cléo learns that regardless the result of her test, it’s silly to sit around and mope and think about the worst. Your outlook is never imposed on you, is the message; whatever the situation, you can be optimistic or pessimistic, or anything in between. According to Varda, it’s better to have fun and hope for the best, as does Michel Legrand in a scene when he goofs around but still composes a new song for Cléo. Then and there, even Varda joins the shenanigans as her camera mimics the swinging motion of Cléo on her indoor swing.
Cléo From 5 to 7 is comedy, romance, and drama. It is playful yet sombre, and always beautifully shot by Varda, who was a photographer before she became a filmmaker. There are a handful of critics who consider it slight and a waste of time, but, being a hypochondriac, I know that it’s quite the hefty film. After all, when I feel sick and dying, I watch it and realize how silly I’m being. It makes me smile. The film is my only psychiatrist, and they don’t give out psychiatry diplomas for nothing, now do they?
Poor Cléo, dying Cléo, stupid Cléo, wonderful Cléo, beautiful Cléo, living Cléo, masterpiece Cléo!
Pacze Moj
© Cinephile Magazine, 2006
