CLEO FROM 5 TO 7. 1961

I've found what I've seen of Agnes Varda's later films either tedious or pointlessly gloomy or both, but this film was a delight. Beautifully photographed, incorporating a splendid "tour" of Bohemian Paris, & as romantic in the Romanticist sense as a Jean Renoir film.

The fact that Cleo (Corrine Marchand) thinks she could be dying of cancer provides the Varda touch of gloom, but the bright environment & Cleo's self-absorption lends an ironic lightheartedness to the possibility that she could indeed be very ill.

The opening use of color then quick switch to deep-focus black & white was a small thing, but itself a witty way to start the film. I'm now very curious about more of Vardas's early work.

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