Back to screening list Back to Search Results. In France, the afternoon hours from five to seven are known as the hours when lovers meet. On this afternoon, nothing could be further from Cleo's mind than sex. She is counting out the minutes until she learns the results from tests she believes will tell her she is dying from cancer. Agnes Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7 is 90 minutes long, but its clock seems to tick along with Cleo's. Varda is sometimes referred to as the godmother of the French New Wave.
I have been guilty of that myself. Nothing could be more unfair. Varda is its very soul, and only the fact that she is a woman, I fear, prevented her from being routinely included with Godard, Truffaut, Resnais, Chabrol, Rivette, Rohmer and for that matter her husband Jacques Demy.
Released in , it seems as innovative and influential as any New Wave film. Wandering into a cafe, she plays one of her songs and we overhead a woman complaining to her table companion about the "noise. In another cafe, two lovers are breaking up, for example. There is something psychologically accurate about this. When you fear your death is near, you become aware of other people in a new way. Yes, you think of the others, you think your life is going on its merry way, but think of me - I have to die.
She begins at 5 p. We aren't Tarot readers, but they look alarming to us. Wandering through Paris accompanied by her maid, she stops in a hat shop and tries on many hats, which are reflected back at her in countless mirrors.
Which look will she adopt for the moment? It is a summer day, and yet she chooses a black fur hat, which crowns her head as a storm warning. One meets one's lover between 5 and 7? Very well then, they will behave as expected. Also in attendance is Bob, her rehearsal pianist, played by Michel Legrand, the film's composer.
