Cléo from 5 to 7

Cleo from 5 to 7 (actually it's 5 to 6:30 but how it is sounds better) is the feminine point of view of Paris, of a discombobulated woman on the edge of a potentially tragic discovery (whether she might die of cancer), and it works because Agnes Varda is in love with the cinema and in love with Paris and in love with her character and star. The passion carries over what little flaws there are- I personally couldn't really stand the actor playing the soldier, though maybe it was some of the writing that came off poorly or self-consciously- and it works as modern film art for what it accomplishes which is one of those rare pure movies for women that doesn't reek of sentimentality or kitsch. It's got some hard issues to face, but it's done in a beautiful style with the camera- itself, as some have noted its own character- and modernity in its thoughts and dialogs.

The star, Connie Marchand, aside from being an unusually beautiful blonde (I almost thought at one point Varda couldn't get Deneauve and settled on a very respectable 2nd choice) conveys that sense of being young and pretty and possibly talented but also unhappy and disillusioned by what might happen not just with her potential illness but herself in general. There's one short scene I really loved where she's just walking down the street and the point of view goes back and forth, jarringly, between herself and those men (and men) of all ages taking a glance or look at her. Is it because she's a semi-famous singer or because she just happens to be a pretty blonde walking down the street? A similar scene occurs when she goes to a café and puts on one of her songs on the jukebox and everyone goes about their business.

Varda, at the least, gets us as much as she can inside her head-space, be it in small scenes like that or something truly grandiose like when she sings the sad song written by Michael Legrand and as it continues and rises it culminates into something too emotional for her to sustain. She tries to explain it as well, which makes it worse. It also helps in Cleo from 5 to 7 that the structure is broken up as it is in the chapters; another French New-Wave film from 1962, Vivre sa Vie, may have featured a better structural grasp on the chapter break-up, but here Varda seems to suggest that it's based upon both the limitation that time presents for someone like Cleo and for a post-modern break from traditional narrative.

Why be told simply "this is the end of a scene, this is the beginning, this is the middle?" With Varda, as with others from that age group in France making movies at the time, there were no firm rules except to be true to the artistic self, and as the camera and editing take on lives of their own and the star becomes something more as the film progresses, it to becomes a strong piece of art. Some it dated? Maybe, it's France over 45 years ago. But its impact remains due to its dedication to its character, to women living lives uncertain and odd, and to Paris.