Movie #47: Released in 1962, directed by Agnés Varda, 90 minutes. Never seen it before!

LetterBoxd: 4.5 stars

I really liked this. Like Breathless, it’s breaking the contemporary rules of cinema – right off the bat, we’re bouncing between color and black and white – but to me it feels playful and fun in a way that Breathless does not. The stakes aren’t necessarily that much lower, as lives are still at stake, but Varda is more fun and maybe(?) less cynical about people.

Some standout moments:

• Cléo’s performance of Sans Toi in the middle of the movie. Just incredible. The way the camera slowly pans until the background is a matte black curtain and she’s singing out of time and place.
• The car rides around Paris. They feel so real, and alive. Also, just very different from how car rides have felt in most of the other movies on this list.
• The silent movie interlude in the middle.
• The nice guy at the end; I’m a fan of just… a nice guy.
• How the doctor, when they finally catch up to him, gives her the long-feared news (she has cancer) so causally and confident that it will be no big deal.
• The little chapter titles, covering stretches of minutes

I would like to see it again.

Why would someone think it’s one of the ten greatest films ever made?

Innovative without being too full of itself. It feels in the moment kind of like a whirlwind fun movie, like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or something, but there’s a seriousness at its heart.

Next: 8 and 1/2