User Reviews

While waiting for the result of a biopsy, the French singer Florence "Cleo" (Corinne Marchand) visits the Tarot fortune-teller Irma (Loye Payen); drinks a coffee and buys a new hat with her maid Angèle (Dominique Davray); is visited by her lover (José Luix de Villalonga) and her composers Bob (Michel Legrand) and Plumitif (Serge Kober); visits her model friend Dorothée (Dorothée Blank); and meets and has a brief affair with the military Antoine (Antoinne Bourseiller). Finally she meets Dr. Valineau (Robert Postec), who gives her diagnosis.

This is the first movie I see of the Belgium director Agnès Varda, who is considered the "grandmother" of the French movement Nouvelle Vague. This wonderful original movie actually has the style of the Nouvelle Vague, with the camera following the characters on the streets and common people looking to the camera. I liked the story, developed in real time, a lot, and I believe it is an ode to life, showing along one hour and half, how life is so important although composed by little fragments and feelings. Along this period, you can meet a lover, friends, work or find a new love, be futile or thoughtful, but you are living. This is the message of this great movie: enjoy life, as if it were the last two hours you have. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Cleo das 5 às 7" ("Cleo from 5 to 7")

Cleo. The woman who is in practically every scene, whether in front of the camera, nervous and flighty, or behind it as it seems to follow her and allow us to know how the world affects her internally.

Agnes Varda is the woman behind Cleo, the one who brings us a unique vision of a woman in suspended animation waiting for her medical diagnosis (and subsequent fate). In 90 minutes of real time, she introduces us, first in color (to specify an incident which will preside over all that follows), then in smooth black and white, to the world of this young woman (played by Corinne Marchand) who by the threat of possible death in the future slowly begins a road to a certain self-discovery which will leave her changed at the end.

As a matter of fact, Death, one of the cards in the Tarot, features largely throughout without actually coming forth menacingly, but staying quietly, unnoticed, in the background. While everything surrounding Cleo teems of life -- her own apartment, the streets and cafés of Paris -- she in turn seems to be living under the shadow of her own death and superstitions (fed by Angele) and goes from emotional to emotion as if she were to cease to exist at any moment. It is only once she leaves her own confining place and takes to the street that she begins to evolve, and Death seems less and less the threat and more the Thing to conquer. Characters like Dorothee and Antoine only reinforce this in their appearances -- Dorothee by telling her she doesn't believe in superstitions (therefore disproving the psychic's dire predictions at the beginning of the story), Antoine by reinforcing Cleo that since her actual name is Florence, she is Summer, and therefore, Life.

In this review, I look at the second feature film by French New Wave director Agnès Varda, accompanied by the music of Michel Legrand.

Florence "Cléo" Victoire, played by Corinne Marchand, is a Parisian pop singer, awaiting the results of what she already knows will be a grim medical diagnosis. Tracing in real time her afternoon between the hours of 5 and 7pm, we follow her movements through Paris as she tries to connect with those around her, looking for consolation and attempting to come to terms with her fear of imminent death.

Set in the 60s, this feature was a significant feminist film for its time and one of the starters of the French New Wave, but it also holds a vibrant musical experience.

French composer and jazz pianist Michel Legrand helped define the 60s with his composition 'The Windmills Of Your Mind', which won an Oscar after it was featured in the 1968 crime movie 'The Thomas Crown Affair'. His career in cinema spans over 154 film soundtracks as he worked with some of France's pre-eminent New Wave directors, among them Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Demy, but in his work with Agnès Varda on 'Cléo from 5 to 7', a different side of Legrand is present.

Originally, Legrand was not considered to be play an acting role in the film. Varda explained in an interview with Les Lettres françaises in 1962 that she cast Legrand after observing him rehearse the songs with Marchand, commenting that he was "very gifted and had a marvelous personality, exactly right for this role." In the role of Bob the pianist, Legrand had a comedic personality, with an infectious energy and passion for music, not to mention an effortless command of the piano.

Using lyrics written by Varda, Legrand managed to compose soundtracks that shaped the entire atmosphere and character progression; interpreting the shifts of emotions that Cléo goes through during the day.

From the early stages of the film, as Cléo descends the staircase, the same three note pattern on different tones repeats, her footsteps follow a metronome-like beat, evoking the sound of a ticking clock, propelling her to move forward onscreen despite her clear distress, because - for Cléo - time is running out.

Whilst in a taxi, she becomes embarrassed when her song is heard on the radio, which indicates a conflict in her relationship with her music. The climax of the film was also musically interpreted, featuring the film score, during Cléo and Bob's rehearsal. Following her abrupt ending of the rehearsal and taking to the streets, Cléo meets Antoine, a soldier on the leave.

As they walk away silently, four disparate, dissonant chords emerge from the soundtrack and lead into the closing credits.

The four soundtracks of 'Cléo from 5 to 7' were released as an EP on January 2nd, 1962. Michel Legrand was working right up until his death at the age of 86 on January 26th 2019. Having announced plans to perform at London's Royal Albert at September 20th, the promoters have said that the concert will still go ahead, but as a tribute to the late French composer.

One of the most remarkable documents from cinema's Renaissance, the French New Wave, criminally unsung, probably because it's by a woman. On paper the film seems schematic - in the first half a popular singer fears she has cancer, but tries to continue her flippant lifestyle; in the second, she realises the shallowness of her life, rejects frippery, and begins to look at the world properly. But as a viewing experience, we are given unprecedented access into the emotional workings of a heroine's mind. The film is a mixture of the spontaneous (the lingering wading through the Paris streets, its cafes, crowds, cinemas, street theatres etc.), formal elegance (the extraordinarily complex Ophulsian camerawork, best seen when Cleo visits the hat shop; the play with mirrors and frames) and an Expressionist sensibility (much of what Cleo sees is not 'realistic' observation, but highly coloured by her experiences. The ending is surprisingly bracing considering its open-ended shadow of death.

Agnes Varda's 'Cleo from 5 to 7' is the story of Cleo, a relatively unknown pop artist, with a few songs on the radio to her credit, who now faces the very real possibility that she might be suffering from terminal cancer. We follow Cleo in real time, wandering around Paris, waiting for the results of medical tests that will inform her (and the viewer) of her physician's fateful diagnosis.

Varda condenses Cleo's journey of anxiety from the two hours of the title (5 to 7) to an actual hour and a half. We learn from the documentary "Remembrances" (which can be found as part of the DVD extras in the Criterion Collection) that anytime a clock was shown during the film, it would accurately reflect the time elapsed in Cleo's journey.

The film begins with Cleo's visit to a Tarot Card reader who reinforces her belief that indeed the diagnosis will turn out to be cancer. Cleo's bad mood is made even worse when two songwriters (one played by a very young Michel LeGrand) come over and tease her as if she's a ten year old child. Cleo stalks out of her apartment and grows more self-absorbed (she plays one of her own songs on a jukebox in a café, expecting to get noticed by the patrons only to find herself ignored by them).

Varda focuses on Cleo's internal strife as opposed to developing any kind of compelling conflict between the quirky characters she encounters. For most of the film, Cleo is presented as shallow and narcissistic—it's hard to like her at all. Instead, Varda is content to draw us into the sights and sounds of a bustling urban landscape. The film is full of snippets of conversation including long forgotten news items (a gift from Khurschev to JFK is mentioned over the car radio) along with non-actors filmed eating their lunch as the fictional story unfolds before our eyes.

Despite a plethora of vignettes, there's very little story arc in 'Cleo'. For me, the ending was a bit of a cop out. After all the self-hatred, Cleo's mood changes from positively dour to semi-exuberant. All it takes is the companionship of sweet-talking Antoine, the soldier just back from Algeria, who knows how to 'treat her like a lady' coupled with her oncologist's terse pronouncement that two months of chemotherapy will make her into a new woman! How many people do you know who are positively giddy after being told that they're facing two months of chemo? Varda clearly wants all of us to give 'Cleo' a 'pass'. All the shallowness, the self-absorption of this character is nothing more than a portrait of a woman under extreme stress. Cleo is to be forgiven since she's 'not in her right mind'. Wouldn't you be having a 'bad hair day' if you were facing a cancer diagnosis? Varda doesn't want us to judge Cleo's book by its unhinged cover (remember, it's not REALLY her!).

More interesting than the film itself is the documentary "Remembrances". I found it fascinating seeing what the actors look like after all these years. It's hard to believe that the film's stars, Marchand and Bourseiller, had not seen each other since the making of the film back in 1961. You'll also get to see how much has changed (and how much as remained the same) in terms of the Parisian landscape over the years.

Cleo from 5 to 7 often feels more like a documentary than a fictional narrative. I marvel at the cinematography which appears to be way ahead of its time. But clearly 'Cleo' has been placed on an undeserved pedestal in the pantheon of art house fare. Without compelling conflict, Cleo falls back on the internal arc of a stressed out, petulant pop singer. And despite all the nice visuals, I keep asking, why should anyone care?

Cleo, a young singer in Paris, visits a woman who reads Taro cards. It's clear to the seer that Cleo's future is an enigma, at best, judging by the cards she has picked. When Cleo goes, she even tells her husband she has just seen death, and what's more, cancer, being the cause of it, which is what the young woman fears the most.

What follows is Cleo trying to make sense of her life before she hears the inevitable fate she fears. Cleo runs into friends and goes all over Paris at a feverish pace, not knowing what will her doctor tell her is the cause that brought her to see him in the first place. At the same time, Cleo never appears to really be concerned, or evidently has made up her mind about the worst case scenario of her medical condition.

It is not until almost the end of the film that Cleo runs into the kind soldier, Antoine, in the park. He is concerned about the conflict in Algeria. Antoine too, must face an uncertain future because he will be sent to fight. Antoine turns out one of the best things that happen to Cleo because of his positive outlook at a time when she feels despondent because of what appears it will be a death sentence.

Agnes Varda, a director with a large trajectory in the French cinema, was at her best when she undertook this project. Ms. Varda, a feminist, never received her due by the same people that went to praise her male contemporaries. The film shows the contrast between a Cleo that is expecting such dire news and the life of the city around her. Ms. Varda employed three men to capture the magnificence of the city of Paris as Cleo goes through different parts of the city. This is a Paris that is not the sort of touristy version one is accustomed to seeing in some other glossy pictures. Thus, the black and white cinematography of Paul Bonis, Alain Levent and Jean Rabier show in vivid detail a city alive and in all its splendor while the main character is having doubts about what life has for her in store.

Corinne Marchand is perfect as the young Cleo. Ms. Marchand is about the best thing in the film. She is always at the center of almost every frame in the picture. Antoine Bourseiller who appears as Antoine makes a tremendous contribution even when he is only seen at the last moments of the movie. Dominique Davray, Dorothee Blank, have good moments. Michel Legrand shows up as a pianist, as well as the composer of the musical score.

"Cleo de 5 a 7" is also a fun film where to watch such French film stars as Anna Karina, Yves Robert, Jean-Claude Brially, Danielle Delorme, Sami Frey, the excellent Eddie Constantine, and even Jean-Luc Goddard appear in cameos. In a way, Agnes Varda pays tribute to Mr. Godard by imitating his style in the way she conceives the film.

This 1960 film shows the talented Agnes Varda on her own merits in a film that is a tribute to life itself.

A beautiful blonde walks down the street. Everyone stares. As Cléo walks through the busy streets of Paris, everyone goes about their day but not without admiring her gorgeous appearance. Her appearance, is so attractive that everyone, even women stare, or is it that the public stares for another reason? Cléo's beauty unmatched through the film suggests a theme of vanity and superficial obsession in which the main character chooses to hide behind, she states "Ugliness is a kind of death... As long as I'm beautiful, I'm alive more than others."

Cléo from 5 to 7 was directed and written by Agnès Varda, one of the few women writer and directors of her time. The main actors include a famous singer named Cléo, her guardian or maid Angela and there is a brief appearance of the following characters; Antoine, Dorothée, Bob and her lover. The film was released in April, 1962 and has an average rating of 7.9 out of 10 stars which exemplifies a decent film. The film is based on the Cléo's painful two hour wait for the result of a biopsy that will determine whether she has cancer or not.

Although clearly in turmoil, Cléo proves to be quite the selfish and vain character. Treating her maid Angela with little to no respect and expecting everyone around her to love her and shower her with attention. Ironically, when she walks the streets, she seems to feel uncomfortable from everyone starting at her and giving her attention. The two hours of waiting time prove agonizing for her as the thought of having a terminal illness crushes her spirits of a healthy and beautiful life. As she walks the streets she is dressed in black as if already mourning her own death.

According to Cléo, "your beauty is your health." Yet the character changes through the progression of the film as she later realizes that there is also "beauty in imperfections." One of my favorite parts of the movie is when Cléo is swinging in her apartment as pair of wings hang on her wall and align perfectly when she is at the highest point of her swing and Angela rocks in her char. This scene proves the child like characteristics of Cléo and the motherly traits that are shown by Angela. The swinging and the rocking set up a perfect paradox between the life of a young lady and the life of an older woman. The music was also beautiful. The song performed in her apartment was a very emotional love song. It seemed like a perfect song for her situation.

I recommend this movie, especially to fans of musicals. This movie is geared towards adults since it contains many themes that are not clearly pointed out in the film. I liked the movie because of its theme of the fear of death, which is something that most of us can relate to. I also enjoyed the movie because of the way that it was shot. Some of the scenes make you feel the anxiety that Cléo must have felt throughout the two hours.

In this film, an insecure, vain pop star, Cleo, waits to hear the results of a biopsy. She spends time with her maid, her lover, and her band who regard her fear of cancer as just another of her moods, and reassure her that she is young and beautiful so there is nothing to worry about. Her self-pitying mood is pushed to the edge and she sets off on her own, reconnecting with a series of people who she relates to more authentically and eventually hearing her diagnosis.

The film is brilliant in how it shows the paranoiac and isolated feelings of a person facing death unexpectedly. Everyone seems to Cleo to be staring at her. The subject of death comes up casually again and again, but suddenly it is no longer a joke to her. Faced with something as overwhelming as cancer and death, Cleo falls back on superstition and self-pity.

The singing adds an interesting element, that is both beautiful and on point. There is a scene where Cleo sings a beautiful tragic song about a woman dying of love. She is moved by the tragedy, but the irony is that she and her lover are using each other and don't have real feelings for each other. Her other songs have to do with sexy manipulative women who get whatever they want, which is ironic because while Cleo's whims are indulged, she is fundamentally childish and without a will of her own, manipulated by those around her.

Cleo's suffering seems authentic and moving, but her salvation as the film goes on somewhat less so. It is an inspiring idea that the fear of death can be overcome by moving from a shallow mentality to a state of real human connection. Unfortunately, that the idea is one one would like to be true doesn't make its presentation in the movie convincing. In particular, the end of the movie, where a brief encounter with a sympathetic young soldier seems to cure her fear of death doesn't convince. Related to this issue is the heavy-handedness in which we are reminded by voice-overs and dialogue that Cleo is childish and caught up in herself, as if it's only due to being emotionally deficient that her potential cancer is a problem at all.

Overall, a movie worth watching, well done and with an interesting subject matter. The overall premise is fascinating but there are not many particular scenes from this movie that deeply moved me or stick in my memory, so all in all not essential.

Cleo from 5 to 7 (actually it's 5 to 6:30 but how it is sounds better) is the feminine point of view of Paris, of a discombobulated woman on the edge of a potentially tragic discovery (whether she might die of cancer), and it works because Agnes Varda is in love with the cinema and in love with Paris and in love with her character and star. The passion carries over what little flaws there are- I personally couldn't really stand the actor playing the soldier, though maybe it was some of the writing that came off poorly or self-consciously- and it works as modern film art for what it accomplishes which is one of those rare pure movies for women that doesn't reek of sentimentality or kitsch. It's got some hard issues to face, but it's done in a beautiful style with the camera- itself, as some have noted its own character- and modernity in its thoughts and dialogs.

The star, Connie Marchand, aside from being an unusually beautiful blonde (I almost thought at one point Varda couldn't get Deneauve and settled on a very respectable 2nd choice) conveys that sense of being young and pretty and possibly talented but also unhappy and disillusioned by what might happen not just with her potential illness but herself in general. There's one short scene I really loved where she's just walking down the street and the point of view goes back and forth, jarringly, between herself and those men (and men) of all ages taking a glance or look at her. Is it because she's a semi-famous singer or because she just happens to be a pretty blonde walking down the street? A similar scene occurs when she goes to a café and puts on one of her songs on the jukebox and everyone goes about their business.

Varda, at the least, gets us as much as she can inside her head-space, be it in small scenes like that or something truly grandiose like when she sings the sad song written by Michael Legrand and as it continues and rises it culminates into something too emotional for her to sustain. She tries to explain it as well, which makes it worse. It also helps in Cleo from 5 to 7 that the structure is broken up as it is in the chapters; another French New-Wave film from 1962, Vivre sa Vie, may have featured a better structural grasp on the chapter break-up, but here Varda seems to suggest that it's based upon both the limitation that time presents for someone like Cleo and for a post-modern break from traditional narrative.

Why be told simply "this is the end of a scene, this is the beginning, this is the middle?" With Varda, as with others from that age group in France making movies at the time, there were no firm rules except to be true to the artistic self, and as the camera and editing take on lives of their own and the star becomes something more as the film progresses, it to becomes a strong piece of art. Some it dated? Maybe, it's France over 45 years ago. But its impact remains due to its dedication to its character, to women living lives uncertain and odd, and to Paris.

This remarkable feature typifies all that was good in French film-making during its celebrated New Wave. Writer/director Agnès Varda (one of the unsung stalwarts of the period) constantly introduces the unexpected into both the central story and its many diversions, cinematographer Jean Rabier's images of Paris are fresh and uncomplicated, and the performances are cleverly stylised. Beneath her cool exterior, Corinne Marchand as Cleo manages to convey a range of emotions, whether worrying about her medical tests, chatting with strangers or singing with Michel Legrand. Watch out for a film within the film, featuring Jean-Luc Godard and other New Wave luminaries.

I found this film extremely enchanting, 46 years after its release. We should all age so well. If you are looking for a stylish splash of existentialism, then this gets a major Ye-Ye from me.

SPOILERS FOLLOW...

Agnes Varda has been a recent revelation for me. This is merely my second film of hers, "Sans Toit, Ni Loi" being the first. Interesting that in each film the female protagonist is so very alone, the one a drifter and in "Cleo" a celebrated chanteuse. Although Mona the vagabond scrapes by, Cleo oozes opulence. The scene where she stretches before a stretch, affectionately attended to by her assistant, was remarkable.

Cleo's minx quality is boosted by these tiny kittens following her around her apartment (one almost assumes they are given away once they reach six months and their neotenic effect evaporates!) Cleo is not someone we the audience are intended to like, but the camera loves her. As does the wardrobe department for this film.

I've seen some variety of posts on this film here and elsewhere, honestly after watching the film my initial thoughts were that the Doctor was tossing Cleo a polite lie, and that indeed the situation was as grave for her as it was for those in Algeria at the time. But then I see other responses and comments including a cogent one on the boards here from a doctor citing all of the things that Cleo, now Flora, has shed...as if she has come out of her luxury cartoon cocoon as a real woman.

For me the film rather was about Cleo's vague sensitivity to something being wrong in her solipsistic state, but not understanding it. Caught up in decaying mirrors, and feeling her powers of celebrity fading like the pop of a paparazzi flashbulb...she is reviled by the flesh, and its ultimate decay. For this we have the frog swallower, the drive-by shooting (providing another cracked mirror). And of course her nagging, gnawing pain inside, which in my opinion we are led to believe is nothing. A manufactured malady. Wasn't that the point of the film within the film, the wrong colored glasses effect the wrong results in life?

Cleo's flesh is crawling, as a response to the idea that unseen swirling supernatural forces are calling her life. There is the oft-cited tarot opening (in color as it is the decree of the creator/filmmaker, and the mere film is just in black and white). Additionally the superstition about new clothes/hats on Tuesdays (a French thing??), her matchbook plucking loves-me loves-me-not. Perhaps worse than being unseen, the forces and her fate are unknown.

So the nearly eerie "happy" ending is Cleo embracing her mortality, and not just a quick peck on each cheek for death...but a more measured response. Life is short...even two hours is really 90 minutes, but the garden is open for now?

Well that was something like my take-away. The film is elusive to me, but so memorable in many ways. Even side scenes like the girlfriend telling off her pushy boyfriend in the cafe, while Angele consoles Cleo in her histrionics, they stick with me still. The female cabbie, had me wondering even today how many female cab drivers there are...I wanted to call a cab company and ask to speak to some of them. Dorothee Blank...her name alone should spin out a film of death and desire, she was a nice contrast to Cleo in this, piloting her own car and her own destiny.

My ramblings fail miserably here, as do essays and treaties typically, this is why we need art. Vive le difference, between theory and art...between real and reel...between man and woman!

Lastly, there seems to be a dearth Varda, I hope someone will use the force and re-release more of her canon on DVD!

8/10 Thurston Hunger

(Flash Review)

This film is pure French art house. I'm probably being a bit stern with the rating and a second pass may net a better understanding; after I read some enlightening reviews. The core plot is a young and well- known singer woman is awaiting results about her health after getting tested. She seeks out a tarot card reader to try to predict her future before hearing official doctor results. During the two hours from 5-7pm, happening in real time but only for 90 minutes, you follow her every move. From walking the Paris streets, interacting with assorted local color, taking taxi rides and so forth. Observing Cleo ranges from moderately interesting to boring. It helps to focus on the film's approach and cinematography to pass the time, which really tell a story, subtly, about how her attitude on life begins to changes as she gets closer to finding out her results. What will they be? This film would be good to analyze carefully to truly see what the film is communicating through its shot framing.