Agnès Varda, also known as the "mother (or grandmother) of the French New Wave" died at the age of 90 on Thursday, March 29.
Born Arlette Varda in Belgium in 1928, she changed her name to Agnès when she was 18. Varda moved to Paris and studied to become a photographer, but soon she started directing films.
In 1955 she shot her first movie, "La Pointe Courte", a tale of two stories, following the vicissitudes of fishermen in a small French village and of a young man returning to the village with his Parisian wife.
Curious about life and interested in reality, Varda then shot both features and documentaries, from "Cléo from 5 to 7" (1962), following a young singer waiting to get the results of a medical test, to "One Sings, the Other Doesn't" (1977) about two women's experiences of the feminist movement; from "Vagabond" (1985), her masterpiece, to "The World of Jacques Demy" (1995), about her husband (the director known for films such as "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"), "The Gleaners and I" (2002), "The Beaches of Agnès" (2008) and "Faces Places" (2017).
Her works can be explored and analysed from different angles, but fashion-wise, "Cléo from 5 to 7" (1962) remains her most stylish film.
A real-time experimental movie analysing a series of existentialist themes, "Cléo from 5 to 7" follows the protagonist, a popular singer, during two hours in her life, while she waits to get the results of a medical test.
Worried she may have cancer and she may be dying, Cléo moves around the Parisian streets with a renewed consciousness, taking in all the details, attaching to the smallest incident a special meaning, until a final casual encounter with a soldier leaving soon to fight in the Algerian war changes her.
The encounter makes it more bearable awaiting for the verdict, but also brings into her life a new hope and maybe the strength to move on and look at the future.
In the film there is a lot to take in as Cléo lives two very dynamic hours, walking, getting a taxi, travelling on a tram, meeting friends, acquaintances and strangers.
The frames are therefore always brimming with life and crowded with people, assorted objects and means of transport, not to mention the architectures surrounding Cléo, and the incidents (broken mirrors, a performer in the streets eating frogs, a man killed in a crowd and so on) that she interprets as ominous signs.
Beauty (after visiting a fortune teller, Cléo reminds herself "as long as I'm beautiful, I'm alive"), loneliness, illness, decay and death are the main themes of the film and they are tackled also through what the protagonist wears (the costumes for this film were designed by Alyette Samazeuilh).
When we first meet Florence "Cléo" Victoire (Corinne Marchand), she is wearing a sleeveless polka dot dress that makes her stand out among the crowd. The dress hints at happy summers, but the idea of despair grows as the clock ticks, haunting the main character. There is a fashion moment when Cléo meets her superstitious assistant Angèle (Dominique Davray) and together they go to buy a hat.
Cléo tries on several summer hats, but then ends up buying a black one with a fur trim, so a winter hat, and wears it shortly afterwards. The hat represents the possibility of gaining time and extending her life, she is indeed thinking at winter, so she may have abandoned the idea of her imminent death.
After shopping for a hat Cléo returns home and wears her dressing gown, but soon she goes out again: this time she removes her fancy wig, opts for a black dress with paisley inserts and accessorises it with a matching shawl and bag.
Some of the frames in this film such as the ones in which Cléo sits in a cafè with her sunglasses on, wouldn't look out of place in a Prada campaign. It is very likely that Miuccia was inspired in previous collections by Cléo, after all she is a feminist and the film looks at how women are perceived (Cléo often states no one takes her seriously since she's a woman, and that the men think that she's faking her illness for attention...).
These brief fashion glimpses in the film are part of those small details Agnès Varda loved to explore in her movies. Her stories always featured her insatiable curiosity and a lesson to viewers: often the key to leading a meaningful life, as Cléo learns, hides in the most ordinary events that happen to us. Great things await those who can spot and interpret them.
Comments