Cleo from 5 to 7 (1964) directed by Agnes Varda

Not long before watching the film, I injured my shoulder after a fall and had to get an X-ray, and remember being pretty anxious to get my results (which turned out ok by the way).

In the film, Cleo also is anxious to get a doctor's report after a test, and the film all takes place within the two hours in between.

She's a pop singer/celebrity, so the results of the test might be consequential to her career if she has a serious illness. I was a little unsure about how big a star she was, but I like the scene where she plays her own song on the jukebox in a restaurant and observes how people respond (people don't pay attention). There's also an interesting part where she has two male songwriters come up to her bedroom and they practice for a bit.

I like the cultural references that were included; in one part, someone makes a funny observational comment "Why aren't more streets named after famous living people like Bardot, Piaf, or Aznavour?" A few scenes take place with her friend in a car, where the radio announces some of the current headlines; it's interesting to hear Kennedy and DeGaulle's names come up in the news.

In the end, she takes a walk in the park, and meets an interesting man, but the movie ends and allows us to imagine the rest of the story.

Another blog review here by Confessions of a Film Philistine

Agnes Varda short films

Agnes Varda was one of the great French filmmakers who emerged during the New Wave period, and continued making films until recently; her final was 2017's Faces/Places, which was nominated for an Oscar (I still haven't seen it yet but it's on my list). I recently attended a retrospective of her short films, noted below.

A Diary of a Pregnant Woman | L'Opéra-Mouffe (1958, 27 minutes)
This film, shot in black/white, was made when she was pregnant (hence the title); it's perhaps one of her most-personal shorts in the series. She films a couple - lovers - and scenes of  streetlife in a neighborhood in Paris called la Mouffe, with lots of interesting juxtapositions.

Along the Coast | Du Côté de la Côte (1958, 27 minutes)
This is a traveloge film (shot in color) showcasing the coast of Southern France. Lots of beach shots and shots of tourists and travelers, with narration throughout. A lovely musical score by Georges Delleurde. It's really cool to see this footage from the late 1950s, as well as plentiful scenes of Nice and Monte Carlo, where I visited in 2004 on a France trip.

Hello Cubans | Salut les Cubains (1963, 30 minutes)
Another traveloge, but this time it is in black-and-white, and using mostly photographs in B/W. Agnes took hundreds of photos which she compiled for this film. A narrator describes the history of Cuba and the events leading up to the revolution. She also took a number of quick-succession photographs and turned them into some cool-looking animations; one was of a rumba dancer. Really exceptional.

Elsa la Rose (1965, 20 minutes)
This is short documentary of an older couple, a man and a woman. The man is about 70 or so, and a poet.  His wife, also in her 70s, is also interviewed on camera and asked about how she feels about all of the many love poems he wrote to her over the years.

Uncle Yanko (1967, 22 minutes)
Agnes had an older Greek relative who emigrated to San Francisco and lived a bohemian life of an artist. This is her tribute to him. It's a pretty cool short film.  There's several scenes of him hanging out with some other artists and friends and eating and talking about art and music and politics. And lots of footage of his artwork. I was sad to learn that he passed away just a few years after this was made.

Black Panthers (1968, 28 minutes)
Made just one year after Uncle Yanko, Agnes again makes a short film set in the United States/California. This time in Oakland California, and focuses on The Black Panther protests during the imprisonment of Huey Newton, a founding member. Agnes interviews many of the Panther leaders including Stokely Carmichael and other people who are just tourists or passerbys who are interested in the protests. It's really a great documentary. It's amazing how she and a crew were able to interview Newton in jail for such a lengthy interview.

The Pleasure of Love in Iran | Plaisir D'amour en Iran  (1976, 6 minutes)
This lightly comedic short follows a young couple on a vacation. They relax on a courtyard bench admiring the colorful mosaics on the exterior of a mosque, and make some innocently irreverent comments about the architecture - how the domes look like breasts and the minarets look phallic. I like the part when the woman has a sudden burst of inspiration, and starts to write a poem on some toilet paper. It's a funny short, and feels like it could be one scene in a longer movie, which would be interesting.

Women Reply | Résponse des Femmes (1976, 9 minutes)
About a dozen women are brought together and filmed in short/quick segments talking about what it means to be a woman and how they feel about how women and women's bodies are portrayed in advertising and on television, and how they feel about men's perceptions in general. It's an amazing film, and so relevant for today. Made the year I was born. The baby in the film would be my age, too.

Ulysses  (1983, 22 minutes)
In 1954 Agnes took a photograph of two people on a beach standing near a dead goat corpse. It's a unique photo that she presented among her works of photography for many years. In 1982 she interviewed the man and boy in the photo and tried to see if they remembered it. They didn't. It's a really interesting and contemplative film. In a humorous touch, she films a real goat with a copy of the picture and the goat eats the photo.

I really enjoyed all of her films. I love how she always add a touch of humor in them.

Breathless / À bout de souffle (1960)

This past weekend I attended an outdoor screening of this film at a park downtown (seeing it for the first time); I enjoyed it, especially the build-up of suspense of Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) being tracked down by the police while pursuing Jean Seberg. My friend commented how the misogyny in the film stood out to him, and I could see how this can be problematic for contemporary audiences. While watching, I noticed the one quick shot toward the end where Michel is wearing sunglasses with one lens just like Clyde did at the end of Bonnie and Clyde shortly before he's killed (the 2017 film Baby Driver also includes a similar bit).

Little Fugitive (1953) or... A Kid in Coney Island

I saw Little Fugitive at a screening at a revival house; after the show I asked a few people if they had ever heard of it before this screening, but no one did.

Another suitable title for the film could be "A Kid in Coney Island", since that's basically what it's about. A boy  spends an entire day and night exploring the amusement park, all by himself.

It begins with him running away from neighborhood bullies; he leaves with some grocery money that his mom left on the counter. There's more to the story, but I don't want to give it all away.

It's fun to watch him wander aimlessly through the streets of Brooklyn, eventually boarding a subway that takes him to Coney Island. I have never been to New York, but this film really gave me a glimpse of what it might like to be there during this time.

This is not like Home Alone: Lost in New York - no slapstick or lowbrow humor. The kid, whose name is Joey (played by Richie Andrusco), is about 5 or 6 years old (actually younger than Macauley Culkin was in those 1990s films).

Joey plays every game, goes on all the rides, buys watermelon, cotton candy, etc. There are some very humorous moments throughout the film, especially when his brother comes looking for him. There are many candid shots of people and scenes that you feel like it's almost a documentary.

The film is even said to have inspired the filmmakers of the French New Wave, and such films like The 400 Blows, which I thought of throughout this movie; you can see the influence.

None of the child actors in the film ever became famous, though the movie's posters promoted the young star to be the next big thing. I don't know what happened to them.

You can find the DVD on a Kino Edition DVD. It might even be played on Turner Classics from time to time.