Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Sindre Kaspersen Belgian-born French documentarian, photographer, screenwriter, film editor and director Agnès Varda's fifth feature film which she wrote after having traveled around the country of France, met various types of vagabonds at shelters and railway stations and investigated the natural environment, premiered at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival in 1985 and is a France-UK co-production which was shot on location in the city of Montpellier in Southern France and produced by French actor and producer Oury Milshtein. It tells the story about Mona Bergeron, a young female vagrant who with only a few possessions and no particular aim sets out on an idealistic journey where she meets various people from different parts of society and discovers both friendliness and animosity.Subtly and finely directed by former Left Bank filmmaker Agnès Varda who has been called the mother of the French New Wave, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated by Agnès Varda and from multiple viewpoints, draws a moving and mysterious portrayal of person who has chosen to wander around and live by the means nature provides and the generosity of other people. While notable for it's naturalistic and gritty milieu depictions, prominent cinematography by French cinematographer Patrick Blossier, use of colors and realism, this character-driven and documentary-like road-movie which examines themes like interpersonal relations, identity, alternate lifestyles, survival, freedom and dirt, depicts a tangible study of character and contains a timely score by, among others, Polish composer Joanna Bruzdowicz.This atmospheric and singular feminist drama about the human condition from the mid-1980s which is set against the backdrop of vast landscapes in the south of France in the late 20th century, is impelled and reinforced by it's loose narrative structure, colorful characters, subtle character development, the commendable acting performance by then 17-year-old French actress Sandrine Bonnaire and the fine supporting acting performance by Belgian actress, singer and director Yolande Moreau in her debut feature film role. A reflective, lyrical and lingering story about the crucial journey of an enigmatic and lawless woman who lives in freedom only for the sake of freedom, which gained, among numerous other awards, the Golden Lion at the 42nd Venice Film Festival in 1985.

dfwforeignbuff The title could better be translated "Without Roof or Rules." This is my 2nd Agnes Varda Film. I was really emotionally affected by Cleo 9 to 5. In this film Vagabond Mona is broke, alone & young female leading an isolated existential hobo life. In winter in the south of France, a young woman is found frozen in a ditch (Mona). She's unkempt, a vagabond. Through flashbacks and interviews, writer-director Agnes Varda paints a fractured portrait of Mona's final weeks as she camps alone and falls in with various men and women, many of whom try to give her life direction. Others do not have her best interests at heart, as they project their own needs and problems onto her.. The story of 18-year-old Mona Bergeron (Sandrine Bonnaire) is told to us by Varda in almost documentary style & in reverse order. To most the people she encounters she means freedom to them as they seem trapped in their own lives & existences. To others she is merely a pawn to be used. Maybe Varda based this on someone real she knew in her own life. It really is a meditative evocative film. It is very powerful in its scenes of few words. It is quite the tale of human loneliness. Mona is part of all of us but she is strongly incapable of love & unwilling to thank people for their efforts to help her, yet Varda is objective regarding her "heroine". I question Varda's intent: is it to ask ourselves how Mona was influenced in her life to get to this mental state? Varda makes no apologies as she follows Agnes Varda in her downward spiral. Varda may be the least-appreciated great filmmaker of Europe's golden age. After this film Varda concentrated only on making documentaries. Like Citizen Kane, this story tries to piece together other people's impressions in an attempt to give a coherent picture of someone's life including the ghastly end of it.

slake09 Mona the vagabond lives on the fringes of French society, in a life without meaning, purpose or direction.I watched this because of all the stellar reviews, but I'm afraid I must have missed something. The character of Mona has little or no personality while drifting through life being rude to people, getting high and contributing nothing to anyone's life. She's not interesting or exciting. She's just useless.I've seen and known enough people like that: there is no secret meaning to what they're doing. They are just lazy bums. I wouldn't want Mona anywhere near me, as she tends to steal anything that isn't nailed down and leave her friends in the lurch. Sure she's enigmatic - because there isn't anything to her. Lots of junkies, winos and bums I've seen are enigmatic; I wouldn't want to see a film about them either.Possibly there is something there that I totally missed. Otherwise I'm assuming that all the reviews are from people who assume anything done by a French female director is high art.

ThurstonHunger With an antagonizing protagonist who is as doomed as the plane trees in the film...this film could be seen as strictly nihilistic. I recently watched "SherryBaby" and strongly preferred this film which I watched a week prior, and yet I still find myself pondering Sandrine Bonnaire's portrayal of a woman who is stranded.Indeed "No one makes it alone" could better be the tag line here, and Bonnaire's Mona goes on an odyssey that is nothing short of harrowing. Also trading heroin chic for (self-imposed?) homeless bleak pushed us into less charted filmic waters. Choosing an unknown for the title role was also a good call I suspect. The film is now older than it's lead actress was at the time.So much of the film talks about how Mona stinks, perhaps smell-a-vision would have helped ;> Honestly her face is still too attractive, although wide and maybe manly in a way, that for me the sense of her scent didn't wash. That being said, her disaffection was on display so well, that you could see her as having a dirty soul. At nearly every chance of being likable she veers to the other direction, the one notable exception for me being her interaction with the "platonologne" (is that like octogenarian, don't know the French...the characters all had interesting descriptions in the credits)..Additionally, from the English subtitles and snatches of French, I sense the dialog (should I say dialogue) in this was quite cutting and clever in parts.While Mona lives without roof or law, while she may move without purpose or direction, she is more than a human tumbleweed. She does not live without leaving a trace...but the filmmaker keeps us intentionally distant from her, we are never allowed inside her mental tent. Thus our composite sketch of her is as complex and contradictory as the people she encounters. Not only does Mona live without control over her life, her death as well eludes her.Viewers may find it less easy to escape.Thurston Hunger 7/10