a film by Agnès Varda
An effecting and tragic story of a fiercely independent young drifter. Through her encounters with various people that she meets on her travels across an inhospitably wintry France, Mona Bergeron is revealed to be an enigmatic, complex and difficult character. The film observes several weeks in her life with a thoughtful, uncritical eye, producing a splintered portrait of a courageous woman who has chosen liberation from the conformity of a conventional society.
The film opens with the image of a frozen, contorted body of a young woman lying dead in a ditch. From the point of view of an unseen and unheard interviewer, we then meet the last men and women to have seen her and briefly known her – the people whose lives she had touched. Each gives an account of their meeting with Mona and their impressions of her, and in doing so they reveal much about themselves.
We see Mona at the roadside, avoiding the police and hitching rides. Along her journey she meets and takes up with other homeless drifters, a Tunisian vineyard worker, a family of goat farmers, an academic researching diseased plane trees, and a housekeeper who envies what she perceives to be a beautiful and passionate lifestyle. During one conversation Mona explains that at one time she worked as a secretary with skills in English and shorthand, but becoming unsettled with the way she was living, chose instead to wander the country, free from any responsibility, picking up what work she could to survive.
With each encounter Mona has with another person, whether they want to help her out of compassion or interest, or simply to use her for their own purposes, she takes from them what she can and when they have nothing more to offer she moves on, leaving each with just confused memories. Ironically, seeking independence and total freedom as a wanderer, forces her dependence on others and on the system she tries so desperately to reject.
The goat farmer is possibly the person who best understands Mona, initially seeing her as a kindred spirit although one who has clearly lost her way. After getting his master's degree in philosophy he chose to drop out of conventional society to create a sustainable back-to-the-land lifestyle with his wife, rearing goats and growing produce. Whilst he may share some of Mona's sentiments he is critical of her lack of direction and motivation. When she casually mentions that she would like to grow potatoes he offers her part of his land but it soon becomes evident that she has no interest in sharing his particular alternative lifestyle. "She blew in like the wind. No plans, no goals, no wishes, no wants. We suggested things to her. She didn't want to do a thing. By proving she's useless, she helps a system she rejects. It's not wandering, it's withering."
In knowing her fate from the beginning of the story, we can observe Mona's initial strengths, determination and courage; her progressive physical deterioration; the sheer fragility of her day-to-day existence; and finally that her survival has become reduced to "only a matter of time". Spending her last hours drenched to the skin, hungry and wrapped only in an old blanket in sub-zero temperatures, Mona crosses a field, trips on a pipeline and falling into the ditch from where she is unable to move, dies alone from exposure.
A subtle and disturbing portrait of alienation and lost direction, this award-winning, lyrical and resonant masterpiece from 1985 features starkly beautiful photography and a stunning central performance from Sandrine Bonnaire.
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