Cléo de 5 a 7

Cléo de 5 a 7 is a French film from 1962. It’s director is Agnès Varda, who through this piece, narrates part of the life of a french singer who believes that she has cancer and is going to die very soon.

 

In this story, we follow Cléo for two hours while waiting the results of a biopsy, from 5pm to 7pm; in the meantime she cruises through the streets of Paris. 

During her waiting, she visits a fortune teller, drinks coffee and buys a new hat with her housekeeper; is visited by her lover and her composers; visits her model friend; and meets military man who is leaving for a war in Africa.

During her whole experience, the singer learns she is merely being put on display, and she also start to see things from a different perspective. At the end of the day, when she receives the results of the tests, she gets the news that she is not going to die.

This film is almost all in black and white, but starts with a scene in color of a fortuneteller reading the Tarot to Cléo. What is curious about it is that only the hands and cards are in color, when there is a jump cut to the faces of the characters, the film is black and white again.

I think that sometimes just watching the way someone moves is very revealing. The director Varda has a fluid camera style, which enlivens every scene. There are several shots with the character’s point of view, like one where she is in a cab a see some african masks, or when she is watching a film from another artist. This part reminded me to my favorite thing in the film, and it was a film within the film; it is called “Les Fiancés Du Pont Macdonald”, and it is about a short love story where a guy starts to see things black and different when he puts his sunglasses. This is really funny, and also very meaningful to the main film, since it shows the protagonist that she must see things with different perspectives, and that everything is not as bad as it appears to be.

(This is a video of the short film within the film, it is very funny!)

This film is really beautiful and worth to see, it has very interesting images of Paris in the 1960’s and also has a strong message in it.