From the opening credits of Agnès Varda’s Cléo 5-7, you know this is going to be a stylish and important film of the French New Wave, a period of film history dominated by François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.
In the color credits sequence, Cléo (Corine Marchand), a beautiful young Parisian, is told her future and the Tarot cards confirm her worst fears as she awaits the results of a medical examination to detect if she has an incurable disease.
The photography shifts to the sharp monochrome handheld style typical of French films of the time. Varda creates an almost documentary feel as we spend the next 90 minutes following Cléo, a famous pop singer, through the elegant streets of 1960s Paris in real time.
Cléo is very superstitious and sees omens of death everywhere, her maid encourages her, advising her not to wear the new hat she bought because it is Tuesday, not to drink coffee and to avoid cats. Thats not all; The movie is divided into 13 chapters, so it really seems like her fate is doomed! Still, she tries to look on the bright side, reflecting, “Ugliness is a kind of death. As long as I’m beautiful, I’m alive.” What French!
We soon find out that Cléo’s songs are going out of style, and despite the efforts of Michel “Windmills of Your Mind” Legrand (who makes a cameo as her songwriter) to provide a new hit, she’s fed up with success and her existence. empty. Her current lover of hers visits her briefly, but her busy lives don’t allow them enough time to even kiss!
Corine Marchand is excellent as the spoiled but tragic rich girl and gives a moving performance that brings great depth to lines like “Everybody spoils me, nobody loves me.” Throughout, her tragedy is put in context by the conflict in Algeria; she is not the only person facing imminent death.
Don’t be put off by the gloomy theme; Cléo from 5 to 7 is an exuberant and very stylish film that benefits from many lighter moments. Not least, a fantastic silent comedy spoof, in which a man in dark sunglasses thinks he’s seen his lover hit by a car, only to discover that due to his obscured vision, he’s looking at the wrong girl. : “Damn dark sunglasses, make everything look so black!” Indeed.