Screening Response; Cleo From 5 to 7

a french film directed by Agnès Varda in 1962

Cleo from 5 to 7 has been one of my favorite films so far, I love French films because of the different themes, allegories, and metaphors, and how they use multiple film techniques to showcase those things. One of my favorite scenes is when Cleo’s lover is seen for the first time. He comes over to her place and sits on her bed. In this scene, we see Cleo and her lover entangled together in the mind. The camera pans around them while he holds onto Cleo, she’s more lifeless/submissive in his arms. Cleo bares her neck at him and looks away while he grabs her all over her like an animal. This scene really shows the relationship between man and woman and this fantasy that she’s created. The first thing I’m going to talk about is the gender roles/depiction in this scene. It really shows women as more pliant, submissive, subservient, and prey to men while men are depicted as the dominant, alpha, predator, and animalistic. This scene really plays on these gender roles in society but it does so to push the other theme that’s present in this scene which is a fantasy perspective that Cleo’s built. Throughout the film, we’re seeing the world shown through Cleo’s eyes and sometimes she imagines or sees things in a different light than one would. So in this scene, we see Cleo views their relationship as fantasy and dream like she’s in some type of reverie state. He worships her and she lets him, which is what she talks about throughout the film how people adore, love, and worship her but yet they don’t know her. They only worship her beauty. This scene just really explains how she sees society/lover, how they see her, and how she’s built this fantasy up around her and she can’t do anything about it.