What? This is in colour? But but
*phew* I thought I was watching the wrong movie… I saw this one a few years back, but I’m rewatching it now because Criterion published a fabulous Agnès Varda bluray box set — apparently with all her movies? I’m looking forward to watching them all after I’m done with this Sight & Sound movie thing…
Futura!
This is really nicely restored… it’s still got plenty of film grain, but absolutely all scratches and specks of dust have been removed.
Aaaahhh this is so good. Just the way Varda tipped the camera there from Cléo’s maid who was doing a boring story to this “random” couple… genius.
Of course, it’s hard to separate the charm of looking at Paris (well, I think it’s Paris) in the early 60s from the rest…
And these shots that shouldn’t work — driving the camera right into her face? And then doing a 160 degree? That shouldn’t work, but it just contributes to the giddiness of watching this.
Yes exactly.
There’s not even the slightest attempt at making the Cléo character sympathetic, which is fun.
That’s what I want my bedroom to look like!
I’m calling my interior decorator right now.
Oh, famous people…
I really enjoy this movie, but this section — where she meets a soldier boy destined for Algeria — it loses a lot of its charm. It’s not that it get more didactic than before, but it’s just not a very compelling character.
Eeek
It’s a great movie. If I have one criticism, it’s just that they didn’t do any audio when filming, so sometimes the video/audio connection is a bit vague? I mean, they’ve dubbed it nicely and all, but it sometimes gets a bit distracting — and I don’t think I noticed as much in the DVD edition, so the deficiencies just get clearer with added fidelity. Or something.
Cléo de 5 a 7. Agnès Varda. 1962. ⚅
This blog post is part of the Officially The Best 2022 series.