Other Titles • Cléo de 5 à 7 • Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) • Cleo - Mittwoch zwischen 5 und 7 (1961) • Cléo de cinq à sept
Synopses for Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961)
1.
Agnes Varda, the lone woman in the French New Wave boys' club, made her reputation with her second feature Cleo from 5 to 7, a 90-minute drama set in real time exploring the internal turmoil of a flighty young pop singer who awaits the results of a medical examination for cancer. Leaving behind her elegant, almost antiseptic apartment for the bustle of the Parisian streets, she weaves through crowds and watches street performers while struggling with her fears and self-recriminations, confronting her shortcomings and finding hope in a chance meeting with a young soldier. Varda captures the vibrant social world and its easy rhythms in creamy black and white with smooth long takes, bringing an almost tactile quality to Cleo's personal odyssey, punctuated with chapter titles marking the time until her appointment at the hospital. Corinne Marchand's Cleo enters as a spoiled adolescent, but introspective internal monologues and brief encounters with strangers etch a portrait of a woman hiding her fears under a façade of flightiness, only discarding the mask when she firmly embraces life in the face of possible death. --Sean Axmaker
2.
Agnes Varda's signature strategy of mixing documentary and fiction comes to fruition in this intimate and fluid portrait of two hours in the life of pop singer Cleo Victoire (Corrine Marchand) as she restlessly awaits the results of a cancer test. With a distinctly feminist take on the French New Wave films of the early 1960s, Varda's film examines Cleo's banal yet extraordinary afternoon as she traverses Paris, bouncing back and forth between various men, intercepting and avoiding friends, enemies, superstitions, chance, and eventually love. The camera follows at breakneck speed as Cleo's existential ennui pulls her through the city (beautifully captured by Jean Rabier's sweeping cinematography). Lively characters populate Cleo's journey, ranging from a tough female cabdriver, Cleo's mothering assistant, her blasé boyfriend, and finally a talkative and intriguing stranger, a young soldier (Antoine Bourseiller) spending his last hours in Paris before shipping off to war. As Cleo's perspectives are completely rearranged by the specter of possible illness, Varda describes a world of life, possibilities, and love.
3.
Visionary of the French New Wave, Agnes Varda captures the atmosphere of Paris in the '60s with this portrait of a singer searching for answers as she awaits test results from a biopsy. A chronicle of two crucial hours in one woman's life, Cleo From 5 To 7 is a spirited mix of vivid verite and melodrama. The film features a score by Michel Legrand (Umbrellas Of Cherbourg) and cameos by Legrand, Jean-Luc Godard, and Anna Karina. Criterion is proud to present Cleo From 5 To 7 in a beautiful digital transfer supervised by the director, with the color opening sequence restored.
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