Written by: Agnès Varda
Starring: Sandrine Bonnaire, Macha Méril, Yolande Moreau, Stéphane Freiss, Setti Ramdane
Rating: [4/5]
To live a life of comfort means conforming to the way of life that provides stability, warts and all. It typically means having a standard full-time job and engaging in a way society deems appropriate. Living outside of this puts one at risk to exist on the fringes, but given a sense of freedom many cannot comprehend. Vagabond explores this idea in the way it follows its lead character in opposition to everyone else around her making for an astute study and look at how to live.
Having lived in Paris as a secretary, Mona Bergeron (Sandrine Bonnaire) decides to give up this lifestyle and just live by wandering and only possessing what she can carry. This means she has no reliable shelter and camps out wherever she can. As she meets others living her lifestyle and others who oppose it along the way, she begins to find some sense of self detached from her previous life.
Living and operating in the all-important rat race has many dispassioned in life in the way people live to work and get stuck within these restrictive confines to keep the house of cards of life from falling over. Exploring this way of living rarely presents something new because the majority of individuals live this way even if they hate it because it brings the most comfort when at its best. Vagabond’s exploration of the fringe where we find Mona presents a freedom many would like to achieve but it certainly displays the downsides associated with it. Living this way has plenty of appeal up until one needs to sleep anywhere they can pitch their tent late at night in freezing temperatures. This juxtaposition between how she experiences it all as opposed to how others perceive it lays out what this feature wants to explore and it does so quite thoroughly.
Going from place to place, this film gives off a similar feeling to another film released decades later in Nomadland where we follow a woman living out of her van. However, the main distinction between what we see in Vagabond appears in the element of choice where Mona reveals she did not have satisfaction with the life she lived and opted to experience this freedom while in the 2020 released film, it occurred through necessity. Having this life come as a choice for Mona says plenty about her and what she values as we see the unenjoyable conditions she finds herself in throughout the feature yet she would prefer this rather than how she lived before.
With this journey for Mona, she reckons that the rest of the world will just go on, and paired with the cold weather around her she must also contend with the general coldness of others towards her. Just because she wants to live in freedom and detached from responsibility does not mean others will necessarily make it easier for her in this pursuit showing this world does not exist to encourage this approach. It makes sense seeing as the way she lives runs diametrically opposed to how modern society operates. We run this rat race because we need to pay for our lifestyle and taxes which in turn helps support others as part of a functioning machine. With Mona living outside of it she refuses to participate in a world where she must contribute to have value meaning the support that theoretically comes does not apply to her.
Leading the charge in this feature we have a wonderful performance by Sandrine Bonnaire, who encapsulates the struggle and freedom of this character. Much gets asked of her as the lead protagonist in navigating this journey with her to the extent that we continue to have an interest in her story. We certainly get that with what Mona represents and how Bonnaire brings her to life as she moves from place to place and wears what this journey has all over her face. Bonaire displays the loneliness that comes with this lifestyle so well simply through her facial expressions. She never fails to captivate when on screen and with collaboration with the legendary Agnès Varda, she helps make this quite the visual and storytelling achievement.
The French title of Vagabond translates to “with neither shelter nor law,” which aptly describes what we experience on this journey with Mona. A wonderful exploration of absolute freedom and how it combines with loneliness because of others not engaging in the same manner. Some may argue in a perfect world everyone should live like Mona does without the incessant need to participate in a world to continually contribute. Many arguments can argue the contrary to having a fully functioning society but this film operates as a singular story of one woman as it does on the general idea of living as a nomad and with it we follow a strong character through several tumultuous circumstances and reaches an apt finale.
Films with Josh 
