Agnes Varda : Cleo from 5 to 7

 

  

 

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

( one reviewer claims this hangs in Cleo’s apartment, but I could not find it)

An attractive, vulnerable young chanteuse floats through two hours of life in Paris. She’s eye candy for men, but the film was made by another attractive young woman who makes a woman’s self awareness of beauty a recurring theme. There’s a proliferation of mirrors.

 What’s challenging for viewers is that all the important details of her life are sketched out in a three minute tarot card reading at the very beginning - and you must pay close attention.  Being skeptical of such things, I let it slip by on first viewing. Later, when I realized that the psychic was actually a narrator laying down background for the story, I had to rewatch that section four times to catch every detail. Without it, you won’t comprehend the two major relationships that will soon be ending.

 A widowed older woman adopted her as something like a daughter and then introduced her to a prosperous gentleman who became her lover. He kick started her career as a popular singer. BTW, the “5 to 7” in the title refers to the hours between work and family when adulterous French men customarily visit their mistresses - which is indeed when this lover visits Cleo. 

 At the end of the two hours, she is scheduled to receive the results of her biopsy. Does she have cancer? The fortune teller reads her palm and concludes she is doomed. But maybe all that’s doomed is her life as a woman/child protected  but also used by others. As Cleo puts it: “ everybody spoils me, nobody loves me”.  The protagonist does a lot of traveling through Paris in those two hours - and each place she stops seems to offer a lesson. Her art model friend teaches that naked bodies can be thought of just as shapes. The model’s boyfriend plays a short movie that teaches things are good or bad according to how we choose to see them. The young man in the park teaches her about a more mutual kind of love. And yes, he is a soldier - the Mars who connects with the Venus/Astarte card from the Tarot. And these two hours occur on June 21, the day that the astrological sign of Gemini becomes Cancer.

 So there’s a sense that this is a fable about archetypes  following patterns.as ancient as the seasons.    Is there a happy ending? Well…. Cleo’s anxiety does abate despite the diagnosis that requires treatment. And she is looking into a man’s eyes as possibly she has never done before. But the fortune teller did read her palm as doom - and she has yet to be proven wrong

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Note: *The fortune teller uses two different decks of cards, picking out possible connections in each to compile an ongoing story. The second deck is the older one, the “Marseilles”, with the final card picked being the “death card” (#XIII). Dreadful but as well designed as the windows in a Medieval cathedral. 

 *Using the first deck, the fortune teller begins her reading as follows:

 Was your mother a widow? (Cleo answers “No”)

 You have a close friend who’s a widow And she’s a questionable influence 

But she’s devoted to you 

She took you away from your home life 

As a result, you met a kindly generous man He made your artistic career possible

Most reviews of this film identify Angele as a maid or assistant. But I believe she is the “close friend” mentioned above.  All the other key characters mentioned in the reading  appear in the film that follows: the lover, the doctor, the talkative young man.  

Angele’s relationship to Cleo is rather strange - at least to Americans.  She has taken in an attractive young woman whom she then introduces (panders?) to a prosperous older man who is “generous”  to her.  Presumably he pays the rent on the apartment where the two women are living - in return for privileges taken between 5 and 7.

That feels creepy to me, but Angele does seem to be loving - and Cleo  can now afford to leave whenever she chooses

And if you ask Google AI 

“ what is the best depiction of a tarot card reading in a movie?”

you will read what makes this one so good.

This is the kind of film I look forward to viewing periodically throughout what remains of my life. I’m pretty sure there is much more to discover through  all its moments, gestures, and meanings. The texture is   as dense as a Bruegel painting - and it’s quite a tour through the bustling streets of Paris.

The film centers on the details of one person’s life - but it’s not really about her. She is a tiny speck on an enormous canvas. Whether she lives or dies is of no consequence.

Count of Monte Cristo ( Bille August, 2025)

 

The book is one of the first ever read outside of grade school. Was I 10 years old ? - not sure - but loved it to death. It was also the longest book I’d ever read cover to cover, though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the 1300 pages of the unabridged version. Maybe half that. I totally identified with the count. Revenge is such an appealing fantasy for the powerless. 

 I did not realize it then, but class warfare is the motivating force in the story. And the traditional aristocracy are not the target here, it’s the so-called meritocracy - those who by hook or crook climbed to the top - and not by especially meritorious behavior. The three villains/victims represent financial, legal, and military authorities - while the count, who isn’t really a count any more than Duke Ellington was a duke - is aligned with the bottom of society, : smugglers, gangsters, slaves, midwives, and barkeeps. It’s the same kind of resentment that won two big elections for DJT.

 The facial and body expression of the count himself is at the center of this production - and in this film his character is so problematic. He doesn’t directly kill anyone, but he’s so close to being a psychotic serial killer, impervious to all the suffering he creates with such relentless precision. The drama is not whether he will destroy his enemies- but will he destroy himself. It was the actor, Sam Claflin, who kept me on the edge of my seat. A cruel, damaged psychopath has never been so appealing - enhanced with fine interior architecture just as Degas, Ingres, or Manet might have painted it. Once his mission is complete, his purpose, his loyal companions, and the beautiful world with which he surrounded himself are all gone. What’s left to live for? A wonderful closing scene with his long lost love on a cliff overlooking the island prison gives us only a smidgeon of hope.  But since that’s all he had when interred in the dungeon, our optimism is justified. 

 It’s all quite improbable - but isn’t the miracle of life itself no less farfetched? I’ve seen snippets of other film renditions, and felt no incentive to ever watch them. Mostly they’re upbeat swashbucklers - like Errol Flynn proclaiming  “Welcome to Sherwood!”. Claflin never draws a sword. He succeeds with knowledge, planning, leadership ability - and, of course, incredible luck. I’m still dreaming of being the count - but glad it’s only a fantasy. What a horrible life

Note: several other great performances as well - especially Blake Ritson as the cheerfully corrupt Danglars.

Lingui :The Sacred Bonds

 

An outsider’s critical view of a Muslim community in the arid, North African country of Chad.   The filmmaker moved to France decades ago. His protagonist, Amina, was shunned by family and expelled from school when she got pregnant at age 15.

Everyone roots for the underdog, especially when their cause is just. And that’s all this film offers except for high end photography. Such a feeling for color, texture, luminosity, and space. That’s what drove me to see the next scene more than the predictable,  feel good story based on gender politics.  But yes, it was also good to see a protagonist so sweet, gentle, indomitable, rebellious, and devoted. Perhaps she’s even unique in cinema.   I have no idea how real she might appear to the people who live there.

The ‘sacred bonds’ here are only between women - suggesting a society as dysfunctional at the family level as the nation of Chad is politically. 

If he had said “I admire your independence. May I love and protect you as your husband?”

 he might have gotten a different response.  Or maybe not.  She was used to doing the protecting, not receiving it.  Regardless, the above visual is typical of the painterly quality.

• **********
• various thoughts

Since Amina’s sister was wearing bracelets worth 600,000 CFA (1080 USD) we can assume that she was not raised in poverty.  She had options in life, but they were lost when she got pregnant as a teenager - and as she explains to her daughter, she was not raped.  She was in love with the baby-father - and expresses no regrets.  She resents being cast out by her family - but practices the Muslim faith that condemns her.  She kneels in prayer daily outside the mosque she is forbidden to enter. Yet she also does not trust the imam to help with her daughter.

Why does the neighbor allow her to cudgel him in response to his rape of  her daughter?  And why did the daughter conceal that fact until after her abortion?  Shame is a strong motivator in this community.  But still Amina, desperate to help her daughter, offers to sell her body to the man who has loaned her money and wants to marry her.  She really is an outcast and rebel- while her daughter would rather kill herself than live that kind of life.

Regarding that man who lends her money, Brahim, he’s not really given a fair shake by Amina and various movie reviewers.  I assume that her offer to sell herself was an act of desperation, but it was also an insult he did not deserve.  The film gives us no reason to believe that his offer of love and protection was not sincere.

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The review in the New York Times immediately put the film into the triumphant Feminism of American gender politics - and maybe that was intended.  It began as follows:

Freedom doesn’t come easily in “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds,” an electric liberation story about a mother and daughter. It is fought for — and seized — by women who, in saving themselves, save one another. For the daughter, autonomy means securing an abortion in a country that forbids it. For the mother, an observant Muslim, self-sovereignty is a revolutionary act, one that necessitates a shift in thinking and in being. It means saying no, dancing, sneaking smokes and fighting when need be. It means finding new ways to be a woman in this man’s world.

Pawel Pawlikowski: The Woman in the Fifth

 

A talented and successful young American intellectual  is so self centered, frustrated, and abusive he ends up penniless in a sordid Paris SRO where he shares the bathroom with a very large, very black, very belligerent man who refuses to flush the toilet. A terrible fate - but not really in need of further resolution. 

Strange things begin to happen. Is it supernatural? Possibly the story is redeemed by making viewers decide how much has been imagined/written by the protagonist himself. But like the infinite regressions in a hall of mirrors, nothing is at stake  - it’s just slick cleverness. Convincing acting and good filming, however. 

The sugar coated nihilism of the privileged and entitled.

Jarmusch : Father, Mother, Sister, Brother

 

It’s no coincidence that all three pairs of siblings get along and all their parents primarily lived in self created worlds. The kids needed each other to validate a life experience that no one else can understand. 

 Watching the film is frustrating because sparsely revealed backstories promise to be so fascinating. The film has a good aftertaste, though, as parents’ homes move from frumpy casual to airtight perfection to totally stripped and bare - the film ending with the sweet sorrow of a stuffed storage locker in Paris. 

 The precious moments of life are sufficient - no elaborate fantasy or high pressure drama is required. No one in this film is ever bored- so neither is the curious viewer.

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It’s more like a collage than an anthology of independent stories.

The intense,  wildly different father and mother of parts one and two allow the absence of parents in part three to deliver a powerful wave of emotional loss that has totaled the bereaved children - possibly for their entire lives.  One or both are druggies. 

The declining competency/normality of the children progresses from each story to the next.  The first adult child we meet is the only one who is married with children of her own.   

The film works much better in memory than in watching it.

History of Sound

 

This is one of those films, like “Charade”, where you really don’t know what happened until the end when you realize that the title of the film really does say it all. “The History of Sound” is the story of how a musically gifted child left the backwoods of Kentucky and eventually discovered his vocation as an ethno-musicologist.

The film is promoted as a period gay romance, and several reviewers on Mubi were disappointed with the predictably tragic denouement. I nearly quit viewing when the story moved to Rome. But as it turns out, more of the screen time is about becoming a professional scholar.  Not really an appropriate theme for the cinematic arts of drama, motion, and color - far more intellectual than sensual - but it’s kinda cool to have the climax of a two hour film be a few well spoken lines written in the introduction of an academic monograph. 

 Once you appreciate that, all of the pieces fit together so nicely: from the opening monolog spoken above a forest stream … to dad singing on the back porch…to the meeting of like minds in a Boston bar…to the invitation to join a Summer recording project….to etc etc. Yes, there is some hot steamy sex with both genders, but the essential relationship is that of minds not bodies. If Lionel had not met David, he likely would have spent his life picking out tunes in a Kentucky cabin. The truth of a folk song seemed to interest him a whole lot more than standing in front of an audience. 

 An important film personally for me - and perhaps for others who are forever hooked by the aesthetic enthusiasms of their parent(s). No other pleasure is greater or deeper.

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 BTW, some nice scenes with the young Ladyship. She was so cute, rich, and appealing, I really wanted Lionel to stay with her and live in a palatial manor, but like Odysseus with Calypso, our hero’s destiny lay elsewhere. He absolutely had to go back home - one way or another.

BTW II - seems doubtful that Lionel ever identified as homosexual.  In a discussion with David, he shares none of the oppression that David feels, and David envies him for that.  Sexual urges just spontaneously happen  - and after he leaves the Ladyship, we don’t see him having any more for the rest of his life.  He writes that song is a way of coping with the “messiness” of life - and apparently he’d rather sing than make any more messes.

BTW III - David acknowledges that he will say whatever is needed to get what he wants - so he is definitely an unreliable narrator concerning his life story.  He even misleads Lionel by saying that his song recording project was sanctioned by the college where he teaches. Nothing he says can be believed.   Perhaps that’s why Lionel doesn’t try harder to stay with him instead of leaving for Europe.  The film is unclear about that.

Amarcord- Fellini, 1973

Perhaps because we watch so many nature documentaries, the structure of this narrative is a quite familiar season to season on planet earth - in this case, in 1930’s Rimini. However, it’s also the final year a schoolboy will spend in the quaint tourist town of his childhood before he presumably moves on to the much larger, and much colder big bad world - which truly did get bad as Europe entered the Second World War. Suspected traitors were not just made to drink castor oil like his dad- a punishment meant for children. 

 The film is drenched in nostalgia - though it’s equally clear that every social institution from family to state is dysfunctional. On the family level, the problem is that the boy’s father married up, so father and son are in different classes in a very class conscious society. They can’t understand each other, and dad, though bright and capable, does not have the education to articulate thoughts. All he can do is yell and slap.

 Is that why the boy chose to leave? Very little is shown of his inner life, other than the rowdiness and sexual frustration he shares with all the other boys. Is all that stuff supposed to entertain us? The promotional poster shown above seems to offer that.

 I’d like to think he’s fleeing this very patriarchal and misogynistic society - as firmly demonstrated at the beginning by the annual custom of burning the effigy of an old woman in the town square to mark the end of Winter. Then, near the end, all the boys pelt a single, attractive, adult woman, presumably because she’s available, but not to them. 

 But maybe he’s just leaving to advance a career. Or maybe to escape an abusive father. Like the fog that drifts in from the Adriatic, the narrative is  a misty cloud, here and there punctuated by strings of festive lights, or an annoying motorcyclist who races through the streets. As with many European films of that era, the primary message seems to be “Yes we’re dysfunctional, but at least we’re cute” - and I’m not buying it. Forget your fond memories of adolescent fantasies and man up! But the cloying theme music was so sweet - and so many of the scenes were charming - especially Gradisca’s wedding reception at the very end. She’s married a fascist policeman. Oh, well …. we will always love her anyway