Audrey Diwan on How Agns Vardas Vagabond Impressed Her as an Aspiring Young Filmmak

July 2024 · 4 minute read

This essay is one of several contributed by filmmakers and actors as part of Variety’s 100 Greatest Movies of All Time package.

When I discovered “Vagabond,” I was the same age as Sandrine Bonnaire in the film, about 20 years old. The character of Mona claims only one value: freedom. Whatever the cost, despite hunger, thirst (lack of cigarettes too). Even if it means giving up her life. She categorically refuses the codes that society wants to impose on her.  

In writing the film, Agnès Varda, as often, mixes genres. We alternate between Mona and a police investigation looking for traces of the deceased young vagrant, an unfortunate woman whose remains no one claims. It’s an unpredictable chronicle because of the character’s habits. And there’s a documentary flavor, because the director likes to build her fictional stories by making reality a raw material, malleable clay, inviting it into the frame alongside her actors, a number of whom are nonprofessionals.  

Related Stories

Downward line graph with an Apple Vision Pro on fire VIP+

Apple Vision Pro Clouds the Bright Future for XR

THE MASKED SINGER: Leaf Sheep in the season premiere of THE MASKED SINGER airing Wednesday, Sep. 25 (8:00-9:02 PM ET/PT) on FOX. CR: Michael Becker. ©2024 FOX Media LLC.

'The Masked Singer' Season 12 Premiere Reveals Identity of Leaf Sheep: Here Is the Celebrity Under the Costume

Agnès Varda did not go to traditional film school. She declared one day, “I am a director,” and then applied herself to creating her own language, to tracing her own path, upending rules, blending styles, with infectious joy. Mona is not likable; she does not seek pity. For some, her story wouldn’t even be a subject. She’s an outcast, traveling without a specific goal. However, the narrator’s voice emphasizes from the start: “People who had met her remembered her. She had impressed them.” When I watched “Vagabond” in my 20s, I looked at her — upright, obstinate, sincere — and I was impressed. I was struck by the feeling that Varda looked terribly like Mona in her approach and actions, free at whatever cost. And I silently promised myself that if I ever made a film (the idea was barely germinating), I wanted Sandrine Bonnaire to act in it.  

Popular on Variety

Audrey Diwan is the director of “Happening,” which features Sandrine Bonnaire.  

Read More About:

Jump to Comments

More from Variety

Most Popular

Must Read

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Variety Confidential

A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV9nfXN%2Bjp%2BgpaVfo7K4v46arJ2qla56pbXWmqVmrpGcrqO7zZ1km52jqXquu9WinKxlYWeAdoCVbWhpbl8%3D