Vagabond

Vagabond (1985)

Written and Directed by: Agnes Varda
Starring: Sandrine Bonnaire
Streaming on MUBI.

It's a travel film - a film about a woman who is homeless, and is wandering on the roads meeting different people and having various experiences. It has a semi documentary style to it now and then, where the characters she meets talk about her. Sounds fun, right? But no. The film opens with a dead body of her, and later we cut to flashbacks to see her life, and the people she met. The film has a very bleak tone. It's very interesting because we associate travelling, and meeting people in a very romantic, slice of life and coming of age tone - but this is conceived almost like a thriller. I'm always intrigued when people subvert genre, tone - for example, Vaazhl (2021) is a travel film, it's about life, self actualization, etc. But it has all kinds of events happening in the film - there are murders happening, there is crazy stuff happening and yet the film held so tight to the theme. 

The few Agnes Varda films I've seen till now - Faces Places, Cleo 5 to 7 and the Salute to Cuba - all have a different outlook towards life. I wouldn't say romantic, but there is a sense of spirit in those films. This film is devoid of all spirit, hope and faith - and the bleakness comes through the music, her blank face and just the way it is shot. After a moment, it was almost unsettling for me to watch the film. After reading the premise, I expected a Wild kind of film, where there is a woman travelling and we explore character through flashbacks. But this film was just something else - I'm sure it would resonate with a lot of youngsters today, because a lot of people's worldview is slowly getting bleaker by the day.