The film's technique seems misleading at times: Cleo wandering the streets, walking into different shops at random, or avoiding passing cars while crossing the street, can't help but be reminiscent of Italian scenes. Neorealism (Bazin even specifically mentioned the boy crossing the street in The Bicycle Thief), and it was in this film movement that has influenced to this day that the meaning of the ambiguity of reality was discovered, and the time in the long shot The value of passing is celebrated, and the film begins to acquire its own ontological status.
However, as with all works of the New Wave, under the banner of Bazin, the French followed the Italian philosophy of filming but created an aesthetic so far removed from Neorealism that, in their eyes, cinema did not have to be To "touch" reality for power and legitimacy, cinema "is" reality.
That's why Varda doesn't shy away from including all sorts of "smugglers" in a film that's meant to be "real" from its title (5 to 7 o'clock, when movie time passes at the same speed as real time). In the cafe, for example, Cleo's disinterestedly listening to a conversation at a neighboring table magically insinuates her relationship with her (unseen) lover; and the "noisy man" at the end even The beginning of the film is predicted by the tarot cards. In fact, there is so much "ingenuity" hidden in the film that viewers will continue to be delighted by this innuendo and intertextuality (see various content-analysis film reviews). If this kind of plot design is put in Desica's film, it will be disastrous, it will only make the father and son's car-hunting journey into a vulgar bloody drama. But check out this movie! Under the lens of the new wave, the truth of the film can finally escape the barriers of the reality of the content and establish its own value.
It is worth taking the time to analyze in detail how this chemical change occurs. The "standard" production process of the neorealist plot: like a father and son looking for a bicycle may or may not be caught in the rain; Probably not, which is the cornerstone on which the authenticity of the film is established. But the authenticity of a film may not point to the "reality" of its content, which is reflected in the film's unpackaged metaphors, the frequent jumps, and the "presence" of the ubiquitous camera (think passers-by's perception of the lens). Stare, although they can be given "normal" meanings: Cleo's psychological subjective shot. This is another "design"!) proof that the story of the entire movie is not a "true event", nor is it by any means Taking place in the real world off-camera, Cleo exists, and "only" exists between 5 and 7 o'clock in the film. All our emotions and experiences come from the film completely and without any discount, and from the sincere, delicate and frank expression of the director behind the camera. In this sense, Varda and Resnais have reached a high degree of similarity. Both "Hiroshima Love" and "Last Year at Marienbad" present a fascinating time and space, which, unlike Hollywood, is extended, but the charm is that , their extensions do not point to the so-called real world.
"Cleo 5 to 7 o'clock" is not an outlier of the new wave, Resnais, Godard, Truffaut, a generation has practiced their ideals in this way. Whenever we are moved by this frank, willful and even a little rough expression, the film is respected by the world for its own existence. The French may never make works that "reflect reality", there will never be Desica, there will never be Ozu, Hou Hsiao-hsien, but they don't seem to need it: they have movies.
View more about Cléo from 5 to 7 reviews
