April In Paris Film Festival – Vagabond

Director: Agnes Varda

1985, France, 105

Screenwriter: Agnes Varda

Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire, Macha Meril, Yolande Moreau.

Discussion led by Sonia Lee, Festival Co-Director, Professor of Language and Culture Studies, Emerita.

 

“When the endless servitude of woman is broken, when she lives for and by herself, man – hitherto detestable – having released her, she too will be poet! Woman will find the unknown!” from a letter by poet Arthur Rimbaud. The rise of women directors in France has opened up a whole new world of ideas, passions, and poetry to film. Now 90, Agnes Varda (The Gleaners and I) was one of the first – and one of the best – to reveal the inner lives of women on the screen. In Vagabond, Sandrine Bonnaire portrays Mona, a young woman who leaves an office job in Paris behind to roam a countryside which is beautiful and full of fellow travelers, away from society’s expectations. But freedom brings danger and vulnerability, as Varda’s modern woman dares to reject a life of safe conformity.

“Mona doesn’t care if you watch or not. I am not here for you to figure out, I imagine her saying…Try to pin me down, she says to her audience. I terrify you, don’t I?” – Andrea Kleine, The Paris Review.