Cléo de 5 à 7

Agnès found me again. I had been meaning to watch more of Agnès Varda's films since clicking on 'Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse' (The Gleaners and I), which felt like it appeared at the exact time it was meant to appear in my life (when I had started to downsize my collections). My Mubi subscription re-activated this month and Cléo de 5 à 7 was on the front page.

Warning: Some spoilers ahead, I understand that you might prefer to watch without reading someone else's thoughts on something.

The opening sequence begins with a top-down view of a pair of hands shuffling a deck of cards in bright and vivid colours. As an admirer of the Tarot, I accurately guessed that the pair of hands were shuffling some kind of Tarot deck. The first voice we hear in the film asks for another person off camera to "cut the deck, Miss." After the typographical title card appears, the camera pulls away from the top-view to a frontal shot of an elder woman who we realise is the Tarot reader and who asks the 'mademoiselle' if she's sick. Finally, our protagonist, Cléo comes into view. She is distraught, but looks very much the epitome of European beauty of that era. She confirms: Oui. She is sick. You cannot help but notice that the shots of the cards are depicted in colour, creating a surreal effect, while anytime people "in the real world" are shown, the scenes are in black and white. Cléo is waiting for confirmation from her doctor about her illness and we follow her in real-time between the hours of 5-7pm, which happen to be the time we have all come to know as 'happy hour' (thanks to marketing/advertising campaigns).

She is inconsolable during the first half of the film, devastated and melancholy as she awaits her diagnosis. Time passes and we meet folks from her inner circle, including her doting assistant, Angèle (whose thoughts we hear through a voiceover in some scenes) and a couple of quirky (i.e. very modern-day hipster type) musicians she works with. We see Cléo's changing moods—typical of a pop star—or at least our perception of them. In one scene, she seems naïve and frivolous, and in another she is defiant and temperamental.

Almost exactly in the middle of the film, Cléo changes out of her white feathery silky garb to a somber black dress. She also removes her wig (Gasp! Her hair was a wig!) and we start to see her differently out of the limelight. We observe her anew, away from her usual entourage, walking the streets of Paris alone. Slowly, she sheds her masks and layers to reveal the real 'Cléo' (we even learn her real name!) as we see her finding strength in her own voice, body, and choices as life keeps happening, rather wildly, all around her.

The film is dissected into small chapters and is a beautiful meditation of time and how we flit and flutter from one feeling to the next. It also shows us how fluid our own identities and relations are. We can feel sad in one moment and then joyful in another. We can laugh with someone and then we can be upset or disagree with them. Change is inevitable. We have choices to make with our limited time: Where do we put our attention and affections?

I have a counter on my web browser, introduced to me by a former housemate and fellow meditator, that reminds me how old I am... in days. I am officially 13,601 days old today. I appreciate these markers of time because I like to be reminded that now will never be, ever again. Eight years ago, I had not yet learned that relationships too are impermanent and fleeting. Not only because people within the relationships change or that all relationships naturally evolve and transform, but because, ultimately, there is an end to this mortal coil. All living beings die. And I continue to learn that it is not just about being compassionate with difficult people and "others" per se, but also our capacity and compassion to come to terms with these difficult feelings within ourselves. It becomes easier to love and be open to everything else, when we learn to accept ourselves and our own shadows.

Cléo de 5 à 7 begins with a woman consulting cards about her fate and ends with a more embodied woman who not only accepts the cards she has been dealt, but realises that as life keeps life-ing, she has choices to make too. She can cut the deck as she pleases. What are you doing in the in-between and the after-hours with your shadow? Do you let time pass you by, or do you let yourself fall deeply in love with the present moment?

Cléo de 5 à 7 is a 1962 French New Wave film written and directed by Agnès Varda.