Assignment #6

Watch Vagabond on Harvey, and read Singerman pp. 353-373. Then answer the three following
questions:
1. Comment on the narrative structure of the film, and explain why the fictional space-time
defies linearity.
The movie starts at “the end”, that is, the death of Mona, the main character. After the audience is
presented with her death, the movie then goes on and gives, from the director’s perspective, an account
of her life weeks before her death. As Singerman says, the movie that Varda directs focuses on the
“Mona effect”. This means that the movie is not really about her death or the problems she faces.
Instead, the movie's narrative structure focuses on the impact that this character has on different other
people who she interacts with before her death. The narrative structure itself can be said to be a
mixture of narration from part of the director, interviews from the people who witness Mona, and lastly
shots that in theory had been done in the past portraying the stories that these people are telling. The
fictional space-time defies linearity because the director knows that she has died, and it would be
suggested that because of this event, she found inspiration and curiosity to go back to Mona’s steps to
find out who she was. This fits the linearity of the interviews; however, it does not fit the shots that are
filmed whenever she was alive. The shots go back and forth between these three perspectives, creating
a complex timeline.
2. Explain precisely how this film represents, to quote Varda, a « fictional cinema with a
documentary texture ».
This film is composed of different takes at different times, which have also different aesthetics to a
certain point. That is why it can be said that the shots taken to the most “real” people, those who Varda,
as Singerman said, were not even actors, were filmed in a documentary style. These characters, even
though they might have had a script, did not change who they were, they were exactly what they
represented in the movie, and that gives it the documentary texture Varda is talking about. Most of
these characters were part of the interviews done about who Mona was to them. Another point is that
the plot was inspired by real events, that the director and the main actress became extremely involved
with, to be able to impression reality as real as possible. Yet, this is what accounts as fictional cinema,
creating a character, and giving a plot that will entertain an audience. At the end of the day, the
character is not a real person, it is a fictional character, yet, it has a meaning that can be generalized to a
bigger context in the eyes of the director.
3. Agnès Varda is the first French woman director whose work is studied in class this semester.
To what extent can we consider her film as the expression of a feminine sensitivity? Would
you consider that Mona’s personality (usually characterized as rude and unsympathetic by the
majority of the critics) reinforces or weakens the director’s general perspective on gender?
Agnès Varda is a well-known pioneer of women in cinema, her film has a clear depiction of feminine
sensitivity as lacking. Looking at Mona’s personality, we notice that there is no feminine sensitivity in her
throughout the movie. In fact, she is a person who, despite her situation, moves on. She is untidy, rude
and unsympathetic, yet on many occasions, she is a source of envy by other women. This is
unprecedented, the fact that a woman is traveling around with a tent, something that for men and
women in that time would seem like a dangerous activity, yet if they were to see a man do that, then
not so much. Another important fact to point out, is that during her travels, she encounters several
other women, which again at that time would be unprecedented, to be envious of her situation. One,
for example, wished to be as free as she is, traveling and doing whatever she wants. In conclusion, I
believe that with this movie, Agnès Varda has been able to portray a new image of women, one that
says they can be these other things, and those can be envied by other women, but will still be undesired
in a man’s world as her rebelliousness leads to misfortune.