Picking up from where I left off last week, the post was about the little details which made Cleo From 5 To 7 such a watchable story. Here’s the conclusion of what I wrote for my ASU assignment then about Cleo.
Another refreshing point about Cleo From 5 To 7 is that the pace never drags even though we can see real time passing as it’s continuously logged onto the screen and clocks are present throughout the story as well. Still, whether Cleo is riding in taxi cabs with her maid/companion and attracting the glances of male passers-by when she’s strolling down the street, drops in to visit her artist-model friend, or sings and dances by herself in the park, — we cannot help but care what happens to this seemingly shallow, spoiled, and vain young woman.
However, within just 90 minutes Varda capably shows us Cleo’s better, less selfish side — as when she meets a young soldier in the park on leave from the Algerian War and strikes up a friendly conversation with him. Soon they leave together on the bus as the affable soldier wants to accompany Cleo to her appointment at the hospital across town. Through this encounter Cleo learns that she is not the only one who has troubles and is able to start viewing life in a more mature and objective way.
All narrative considerations aside, Varda’s use of real locations, and documentary-style shots of real Parisians on the street, eating at cafes, or riding the bus, etc. while Cleo gets through a trying day — also creates a pleasing time capsule of early 1960s Paris. All of this is presented from an ordinary, yet appealing perspective. The fictional story and the real-life stories going on around it blend seamlessly. This is what makes Cleo From 5 To 7 perhaps the quintessential example of New Wave which can be viewed again and again…and still see something new, some little detail each time.
Along with Cleo From 5 To 7, both Breathless and Hiroshima, Mon Amour are prominent examples of the French New Wave in that they present simple but compelling and memorable narratives while dispensing with bloated budgets and dazzling special effects. The creators of these films employed unusual, boundary-breaking cinematic techniques with streamlined production methods — which were the antithesis of the typical, stodgy old ways that the French film industry and plodded through for eons. It would be quite right to say that all three films were like the fresh baked, scrumptious baguettes you want to snatch up right away while skipping over the same old, tired cinematic offerings which resembled bland, stale loaves of Wonder Bread!
