So utterly beautiful. Follow Cleo for these 2 hours of her day and see Varda at some of her most creative and moving moments as a filmmaker.
Cléo from 5 to 7 (Cléo de cinq à sept)
Critic Rating
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- France,
- Italy
- 1962
- · 90m
Director
Agnès Varda
Cast
Corinne Marchand,
Antoine Bourseiller,
Dominique Davray,
Dorothée Blanck,
Michel Legrand,
José Luis de Vilallonga
Genre
Comedy,
Drama
This film follows two hours in the life of Cléo, a young singer set adrift in Paris, as she awaits the results of a transformative medical test. Forced to confront her own mortality, she begins to see herself and her life more clearly. An exercise in existentialism and French feminism.
Stream Cléo from 5 to 7
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What are critics saying?
100
Little White Lies
The film is not only an enjoyably unique exploration of coming to terms with illness and mortality but a snapshot of the French capital circa 1962, and even its cinematic culture.
100
LarsenOnFilm by Josh Larsen
The movie stands apart from the French New Wave in that it is very much the story of a woman, not about a woman.
100
The New Yorker by Richard Brody
In fusing Cleo’s intricate consciousness with the teeming vitality of city life and the fine grain of daily activity, Varda displays her vast artistic inspiration and expands the power of the cinema itself.
100
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
A pioneering glory of the new wave.
100
Empire by David Parkinson
One of the Nouvelle Vague's boldest achievements.
100
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Released in 1962, it seems as innovative and influential as any New Wave film.
100
Little White Lies by Adam Scovell
The film is not only an enjoyably unique exploration of coming to terms with illness and mortality but a snapshot of the French capital circa 1962, and even its cinematic culture.
100
Slant Magazine by Eric Henderson
Varda captures the fairy-tale essence of early-’60s Paris with a vivacity and richness that rivals Godard’s Breathless.
100
The Telegraph by Tim Robey
Agnes Varda's exquisite New Wave masterpiece, about an hour and a half in the life of a gorgeous, possibly dying chanteuse. [30 Apr 2010, p.31]
91
The A.V. Club by Keith Phipps
An almost literal slice of life, as its title suggests, Cléo allows Varda to illustrate beautifully the lost world surrounding those too stuck in their own heads—and, more pointedly, too caught up in the role-playing expected of women.
90
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Underrated when it came out and unjustly neglected since, it’s not only the major French New Wave film made by a woman, but a key work of that exciting period—moving, lyrical, and mysterious.
80
Time
Cleo from 5 to 7, acclaimed in France as "the most beautiful film ever made about Paris," is a curiously, spuriously brilliant attempt to contemporize the legend of Death and the Maiden.
70
Variety
Sometimes invention falters, as in the scene with the songwriters. But Varda then easily picks up the threads and keeps alive interest in the girl and her plight.
50
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
Another French film that fairly glitters with photographic and cinematic "style," yet fails to do more than skim the surface of a cryptic dramatic theme.
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