Vagabond (film)
Encyclopedia
Vagabond is a 1985
1985 in film
-Events:* 3 December - Roger Moore steps down from the role of James Bond after twelve years and seven films. He is replaced by Timothy Dalton.* The Academy Award for Best Picture was won by Out Of Africa, while the highest grossing film was Back to the Future.* Bliss wins AFI Award for best Movie...

 drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style....

, featuring Sandrine Bonnaire
Sandrine Bonnaire
Sandrine Bonnaire is a French actress, who has appeared in more than 40 films including Hollywood movies.Bonnaire was born in the town of Gannat, Allier, in the Auvergne region. She was born into a working-class family, the seventh of eleven children. Her acting career began at the age of 16 in...

. It describes the story of a young woman, a vagabond
Vagabond (person)
A vagabond is a drifter and an itinerant wanderer who roams wherever they please, following the whim of the moment. Vagabonds may lack residence, a job, and even citizenship....

, who wanders through French wine country one winter. The film was the 36th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 1,080,143 admissions in France.

Plot

The film begins with the contorted body of the woman, covered in frost. From this image, an unseen and unheard interviewer puts the camera on the last men to see her and the ones who found her. The action then flashes back to the woman, Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire
Sandrine Bonnaire
Sandrine Bonnaire is a French actress, who has appeared in more than 40 films including Hollywood movies.Bonnaire was born in the town of Gannat, Allier, in the Auvergne region. She was born into a working-class family, the seventh of eleven children. Her acting career began at the age of 16 in...

) walking along the roadside, hiding from the police and trying to get a ride. Along her journey she meets and takes up with other vagabonds such as herself as well as a Tunisian vineyard worker, a family of goat farmers, a professor researching trees, and a maid who envies what she perceives to be a beautiful and passionate lifestyle. Mona explains to one of her temporary companions that at one time she had an office job in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and did very well for herself, but she became unsettled with the way she was living—choosing instead to wander the country free from any responsibility, picking up what she could to survive as she goes. Throughout the film, Mona's condition seems to become progressively worse until she finally falls where we first saw her, frozen and entrenched in her misery in a ditch.

Cast

  • Sandrine Bonnaire
    Sandrine Bonnaire
    Sandrine Bonnaire is a French actress, who has appeared in more than 40 films including Hollywood movies.Bonnaire was born in the town of Gannat, Allier, in the Auvergne region. She was born into a working-class family, the seventh of eleven children. Her acting career began at the age of 16 in...

     as Mona Bergeron
  • Setti Ramdane as Tunisian
  • Francis Balchère as Police
  • Jean-Louis Perletti as Police
  • Urbain Causse as Farmer
  • Christophe Alcazar as Farmer
  • Yolande Moreau
    Yolande Moreau
    Yolande Moreau is a Belgian comedienne, actress and film director.-Biography:She has won two César Awards for Best Actress, in 2005 for When the Sea Rises and in 2009 for Séraphine....

     as Yolande
  • Joël Fosse as Paulo
  • Patrick Schmit as Truck Driver
  • Daniel Bos as Demolition Worker
  • Katy Champaud as Girl at the Pump
  • Raymond Roulle as Old Man with Matches
  • Henri Fridlani as The Gravedigger
  • Patrick Sokol as Young Man with Sandwich
  • Pierre Imbert as Mechanic

Style

The film combines straightforward narrative scenes, in which we see Mona living her life, with pseudo-documentary sequences in which people who knew Mona turn to the camera and comment on what they remember about her. Significant events are sometimes left unshown, so that the viewer must piece the information together to gain a full picture.

The title

The original French title, Sans toit ni loi, is a pun on a common French idiom, "Sans foi ni loi" - "Without faith or law." The near-literal title, "Without Roof or Rule" was coined by film scholar Dennis Bingham
Dennis Bingham
Dennis Bingham was a British Olympic polo player. He competed in the 1924 Paris Summer Olympic Games and won the bronze medal alongside teammates Frederick Guest, Frederick Barrett, and Kinnear Wise.- References :...

, in order to give it some of the wordplay effect of the original title. The film has never been released under the title "Without Roof or Rule."

Awards and nominations

Award Category Name Outcome
César Awards 1986
César Awards 1986
The 1986 César Awards were hosted by Madeleine Renaud and Jean-Louis Barrault. The winners were:*Best Film:3 hommes et un couffin, directed by Coline SerreauL'Effrontée, directed by Claude MillerPéril en la demeure, directed by Michel DevilleSans toit ni loi, directed by Agnès VardaSubway,...

 
Best Actress Sandrine Bonnaire
Best Film Agnès Varda
Best Director Agnès Varda
Best Supporting Actress Macha Méril
French Syndicate of Cinema Critics
French Syndicate of Cinema Critics
The French Syndicate of Cinema Critics has awarded 4 prizes - the Prix Méliès annually since 1946 to the best French film of the year. The Prix Léon Moussinac, awarded to the Best Foreign Film category was added in 1967...

 
Best Film Agnès Varda
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards  Best Actress Sandrine Bonnaire
Best Foreign Film Agnès Varda
Sant Jordi Awards Best Foreign Actress Sandrine Bonnaire
Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...

 
Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...

Agnès Varda
FIPRESCI Prize Agnès Varda
OCIC Award Agnès Varda


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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