Cleo from 5 to 7 (Cléo de 5 à 7)

Wednesday 8 October at 7.30pm

Agnès Varda | France/Italy | 1962 | 86 mins | PG sexual references

In co-operation with the Institut Français and the Embassy of France

Shooting entirely on location in the streets of Paris, Varda chronicles two anxious hours in a pop singer’s life. Score by Michel Legrand, who cameos alongside Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

“Vain, childish and selfish at the start, Cleo’s journey through Paris is also a journey of self-discovery—she transforms in the course of the film from a passive woman on whom others’ expectations are projected into an active participant in her own life. Cleo’s metamorphosis is reflected in her movements through Paris; the film’s first half is dominated by a shopping excursion in which Cleo is surrounded by mirrors, and in the second half, she literally sheds her false image in order to actively observe the city.”—Harvard Film Archive

“Offers an irreplaceable time capsule of Paris, and fans of Michel Legrand won’t want to miss the extended sequence in which he visits the heroine and rehearses with her… Underrated when it came out and unjustly neglected since, it’s not only the major French New Wave film made by a woman, but a key work of that exciting period—moving, lyrical, and mysterious.”—Jonathan Rosenbaum