Cleo from 5 to 7

Agnes Varda's 1962 film Cleo from 5 to 7 is one of the major films of the French New Wave, along with Breathless and The 400 Blows. It was existential film about a flighty young singer, which doesn't seem to go together and at times I found it confounding. It's more of historical importance than entertaining.

Varda, as the title indicates, shoots the film in real time, cheating a bit here and there during car rides. Each chapter is about five minutes long,and follows the time along perfectly. Cleo packs a lot into an hour and a half (it doesn't go all the way to seven o'clock), especially when I realize I can spend that much time doing nothing but laying in bed.

The time of the film is Cleo waiting for a medical test result. She fears she has cancer. The first scene is at a fortune teller, where she is having tarot cards read for her (interestingly, the shots of the cards are the only color in this otherwise black and white film). The reader sees only bad things for her, and withholds some information, which makes Cleo even more panicked. She meets with her personal assistant, Angele, and they go shopping for hats, but Cleo is only interested in black hats, even though it's the first day of summer.

From then on she goes home, meets briefly with her lover, who has no time for her, and then goes back out to meet her friend, a nude artist's model. "I'm happy with my body, not proud of it," she tells Cleo. They take a drive, and Cleo ends up in a park, where she meets a young soldier who is back from the Algerian War (this is a topic throughout the film, as it has to be--it would be like making a film about American in 1968 and not mentioning Vietnam). The soldier is a philosophical sort, who makes Cleo feel better.

Corinne Marchand plays Cleo, in what appears to be her only major role. She is a pop singer, and there is some horseplay when she is visited by her collaborators (composer Michelle LeGrand plays one of them). She also visits a movie theater, where she watches a silent short film in the manner of Harold Lloyd, starring Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina. Godard has been wearing dark glasses and it gives him a dim view of the world; once he throws him in the river he sees the world in a better light.

All of this can be said to be a commentary on mortality. I can't imagine what I would go through in Cleo's place, especially for one so young. She is preparing for a death sentence, while at the same time trying not to think about it. An entire life can go by in such a short period.

This was Varda's major contribution to the New Wave--the features that followed weren't as celebrated (or available) until Vagabond in 1985.