Cleo from 5 to 7

1962 drama

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Cleo[patra] (Florence), a French pop singer who assumes she's dying from cancer, awaits confirmation from a doctor that she is indeed a French pop singer. Or that she's dying. She wanders the streets of Paris, visits with friends, and tries to come to grips with her mortality.

And what a breathtaking examination of a person dealing with her own mortality this is! I was sucked into Cleo's black and white world that is nowhere near black and white (figuratively speaking anyway) from the very beginning and stared transfixed until the fantastic ambiguous ending. No, it's not ambiguous like that. You'll know Cleo's fate by the end of the movie, but there's a great, almost startled expression that actress Corinne Marchand has as the curtains fall on this one that manages to perfectly encapsulate everything that must have gone through her gorgeous little head in the hour and a half this movie takes place. This unfolds in real time like television's 24. It even gives updates on the time almost like chapter titles, and a few times, I listened for that giant thunking clock noise that 24 uses. There wasn't any torture though unless you consider watching somebody ride a bus or walking in silence for a minute or so is boring enough to be considered torture of the audience. A lot of the movie, the transitioning from friend to friend or from place to place forces the viewer to focus on the minutia. Personally, I liked the leisurely pace, and you get to see some neat parts of Paris. And it's filmed beautifully; there are several moments when the slightest camera movement or vehicle movement or character movement causes a shot to unfold into this seemingly accidental bit of directorial brilliance. Director Agnes Varda really takes advantage of the entire screen, whether it's to display the beauty of Paris's bowels or Cleo's face. Michael Legrand scored the thing, and his music adds a buoyancy to the proceedings. This is the type of movie that forces the viewer to bring experiences to the table, I think. Cleo is one that sat on my shelf for a long time because I was just never in the mood for something I figured would be pretty dull. More often than not, it seems these end up being the best movies. I'll take it back to the library so it can sit on the shelf there and be ignored by all the dying people who are always in my way.