Vagabond

What I admired the most about "Vagabond" is the objective, evenhanded approach of the director towards her "heroine". She neither praises nor condemns her chosen "lifestyle", she simply observes it - and she observes it so well that this feels like the work of someone who's had first-hand experiences with similar people and surroundings. To be perfectly honest, the film doesn't have much psychological (or sociological) depth, and it can get boring at times while you're watching it, but right after it's over, you know that you've seen a good movie. (***)

A Rave! Beautifully photographed by Patrick Blossier, every shot, every frame is a delightfully balanced composition of light, color, and framing.

What's more amazing still is how Varda can make such a depressing story so mesmerizing. It is a touching, enchanting story of a lost girl slowly sinking deeper and deeper into society's refuse pile. And even though from the first reel we know her fate, we have to see how it unfolds. I don't remember the last time I saw such a beautiful film. One for the film schools. A masterpiece of French neo-realism.

Someone moving through life in a way so counter to the norm, taking the road less traveled and often so vulnerable doing so, is like a mirror held up to humanity. Some react with incredible generosity and try to give her a leg up, and others are harsh or prey on her. To its credit, the film doesn't glamorize this character and frankly she's often hard to like, and yet Varda has a way of bringing out empathy, a big part of which is suspending judgment. It didn't all work for me, like the maid with problems of her own addressing the camera, and it's a bleak tale, but the profoundly deep kindness of the director radiates like a beacon. Sandrine Bonnaire gave a fine performance too.

Perhaps Sandrine Bonnaire's "Mona" represents my greatest fear -- of being alone and broke. That is why she has remained with me for almost twenty years. Remembering the first time I met her is nostalgic to me. I walked the roads of rural France with her and liked her for not begging to be liked. Perhaps it was love more than like. Her journey made me tearful. I mourned the inevitability of her existence.

Such is Agnes Varda's talent that the movie affected me so deeply -- my favourite movie of hers, by the way. The landscapes are so vivid, the dead tree branches so bare yet so brittle in the harsh elements. The compositions possess a fixed, absolute nature that conveys a hopeless destiny. There is no offensive beauty in Mona's destitution, there is merely purity.

Because so few motion pictures resonate with this much intensity and feeling for me, I go through periods in which I feel like I'm wasting my life away seeing so many, but when I consider the alternative, Mona's choices suddenly feel real to me.

Extraordinary in every sense.

Make a gallant effort to see VAGABOND. It will touch you deeply and wake you from the slumber of indifference.

You're an outcast, left to fend all on your own, reasons unclear, and only you're the one who knows, wandering the barren lands, in a winter where cold's fanned, on occasion some small morsel might be thrown. The net, that's meant to catch your fall has failed, as you cascade along a lost and lonely trail, folks indifferent to your plight, you're frustrations causing flight, becoming cornered, without wind to catch your sail.

Through an outstanding performance from Sandrine Bonnaire, the late, great Agnès Varda leaves us under no illusion of the cause of a young woman's death during her winter of discontent.