Cleo from 5 to 7

This is an amazing film. At the beginning, it is bland and even tideous as Cleo the singer seems like a spoilt and capricious child in a woman's body. Despite her fame (her songs are on radio), she was listless, and when her composer learns that she is ill, he remarks that she just wants some attention, which seems to be the case.

Then at the middle of rehearsing, she throws temper at the composer and lyricist, gets changed, and goes out on her own to in the late afternoon street.

The mood of the film changes subtly once she leave her companions in the confined and familiar space of her doll like home. Though she has now put on a black dress, she looks more lively, real and human without her elaborate wig. As she is on her own in the Paris street, we are kept in the dark as to what exactly is going on except that from her face, she continues to be self-absorbed and unhappy. There is still a lack of plot here but a caption in the silent movie she is shown later on hinted what the film is about, and indeed, what the heroine is overwhelmed with: the dread of cancer and its impact on her future of the past two days.

The DVD at this point was damaged and by the time it plays properly again, she is dropping off her model friend, directing the taxi driver to drive through a park, then she rambles in a peaceful park, where a stranger comes to her by a mini waterfall. And my, from this moment on, Cleo the doll/dull woman begins to reveal herself gradually as an attractive young lady who is capable of genuine human interactions. Typical of the French new wave cinema of the late 50s and early 60s, the plot is still rather loose, which in itself draws our attention entirely to the dialogues or half of the time, the lack of it between the two of them as they sit on a bench by the water, catch a bus to the hospital, then sit on a bench in a beautiful park of the hospital. The acting is natural but the chemistry between the two is well captured on the black and white film. Antoine Bourseiller the soldier looks like an average young man when he is 'half in uniform', but soon he puts on his jacket and hat, and his irresistable natural charm transforms the last 15 to 20 minutes of the film: - what happens then between the protagonists as they wonder about his familiar quarter of Paris is one of the most romantic and captivating scenes in cinema, which lifts the film from an average new wave work into a memorable experience.

I checked my bible afterwards and the auther did not think much of the film or all of those except Vagaband by the Agnes Varda. But to me, although I accept the point that it is not about 'real life', it however makes a lot more sense than some of the films raved about by the author, say, Paris Belongs to Us by Jacque Riverret of the same period.

And I guess much of the credit should go to Antoine Bourseiller, who could express desire and emotions through just his eyes.