Directed in 1985 by vet French New Wave Agnes Varda, Vagabond tells the touching story of Mona, a young drifter, magnificently played by Sandrine Bonnaire, one of the leading actresses in the French cinema today.
Grade: A (***** out of *****)
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Theatrical release poster
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The film’s essence is well captured by its original French title, “Sans toit ni loi” (With neither Shelter nor Law), is a play on a common French idiom, “sans foi ni loi,” meaning “with neither faith nor law.” It also puns on sans toi (“without you”).
The film tells the story of a young woman, a vagabond, who wanders through the Languedoc-Roussillon wine country one winter.
Narrative Structure:
The film begins with the contorted body of a young woman lying in a ditch, covered in frost. From this image, an unseen interviewer (Varda) puts the camera on the last men to see her and the one who found her.
The action then flashes back to the woman, Mona, walking along the roadside, hiding from the police and trying to get a ride.
Along her journey she takes up with other vagabonds as well as a Tunisian vineyard worker, a family of goat farmers, an agronomy professor, and a maid who envies what she perceives to be Mona’s beautiful and passionate lifestyle.
Mona explains to one of her temporary companions that at one time she was a secretary in Paris but became unsettled with the way she was living, choosing instead to wander the country, free from any responsibility.
Her condition worsens until she finally falls where we first encounter her—in a ditch, frozen to death.
Vagabond combines narrative scenes, in which we see Mona living her life, with pseudo-documentary sequences in which people who knew Mona turn to the camera and say what they remember about her.
The death is investigated by an unseen and unheard interviewer who focuses on the people who last saw her.
Vagabond is told through nonlinear techniques, with the tezt divided into 47 episodes, and each episode told from a different person’s perspective.
Varda does not treat her character in conventional terms of motivation, personality and so on. Nor does she claim to understand Mona. Instead, she presents scenes from a life on the road, leaving it entirely up to the audience to make up their mind.
Significant events are sometimes left unshown, so that the viewer must piece information together to gain a full picture.
Vagabond is considered one of Varda’s greater feminist works because of the way the film deals with the de-fetishization of the female body from the male perspective.
Critical Status:
The film premiered at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival, where it won the top prize, Golden Lion.
Vagabond was nominated for four César Awards, with Bonnaire winning Best Actress.
The film and Bonnaire were also the winners of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) for best foreign film and best actress, respectively.
The film was the year’s 36th highest-grossing film with a total of 1,080,143 admissions in France.
Cast
Sandrine Bonnaire as Mona Bergeron
Macha Méril as Mme Landier
Yolande Moreau as Yolande
Stéphane Freiss as Jean-Pierre
Setti Ramdane as Assoun
Francis Balchère as Police
Jean-Louis Perletti as Police
Urbain Causse as Farmer
Christophe Alcazar as Farmer
Joël Fosse as Paulo
Patrick Schmit as Truck Driver
Daniel Bos as Demolition Worker
Katy Champaud as Girl at the Pump
Raymond Roulle as Old Man with Matches
Henri Fridlani as The Gravedigger
Patrick Sokol as Young Man with Sandwich
Pierre Imbert as Mechanic
Credits
Directed, written by Agnès Varda
Produced by Oury Milshtein
Cinematography Patrick Blossier
Edited by Patricia Mazuy
Agnès Varda
Music by Joanna Bruzdowicz
Fred Chichin
Distributed by MK2 Diffusion
Release dates: September 1985 (Venice) Dec 4, 1985
Running time 105 minutes
Country France
Language French
Box office $8.1 million
