Agnès Varda

Vagabond

Vagabond

Sandrine Bonnaire won the Best Actress César for her portrayal of the defiant young drifter Mona, found frozen to death in a ditch at the beginning of Vagabond. Agnès Varda pieces together Mona’s story through flashbacks told by those who encountered her (played by a largely nonprofessional cast), producing a splintered portrait of an enigmatic woman. With its sparse, poetic imagery, Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi) is a stunner, and won Varda the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

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Film Info

  • France
  • 1985
  • 105 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.66:1
  • French
  • Spine #74

Special Features

  • New restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Agnes Varda
  • Remembrances (2003), a documentary on the making of the film, including interviews with Sandrine Bonnaire and other cast members
  • The Story of an Old Lady (2003), a short piece in which Varda revisits actress Marthe Jarnias, who plays the old aunt in the film
  • Music and Dolly Shots, (2003), a conversation between Varda and composer Joanna Bruzdowicz
  • A 1986 radio interview with Varda and writer Nathalie Sarraute, who inspired the film
  • Theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A new essay by Chris Darke and written introduction by Agnes Varda

Available In

Collector's Set

4 by Agnès Varda

4 by Agnès Varda

DVD Box Set

4 Discs

$79.96

Collector's Set

The Complete Films of Agnès Varda

The Complete Films of Agnès Varda

Blu-ray Box Set

15 Discs

$199.96

Special Features

  • New restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Agnes Varda
  • Remembrances (2003), a documentary on the making of the film, including interviews with Sandrine Bonnaire and other cast members
  • The Story of an Old Lady (2003), a short piece in which Varda revisits actress Marthe Jarnias, who plays the old aunt in the film
  • Music and Dolly Shots, (2003), a conversation between Varda and composer Joanna Bruzdowicz
  • A 1986 radio interview with Varda and writer Nathalie Sarraute, who inspired the film
  • Theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A new essay by Chris Darke and written introduction by Agnes Varda
Vagabond
Cast
Sandrine Bonnaire
Mona Bergeron
Macha Méril
Madame Landier
Stéphane Freiss
Jean-Pierre
Laurence Cortadellas
Eliane
Patrick Lepcynski
David
Yolande Moreau
Yolande
Marthe Jarnias
Tante Lydie
Yahiaoui Assouna
Assoun
Credits
Director
Agnès Varda
Written by
Agnès Varda
Editing by
Agnès Varda
Cinematography
Patrick Blossier
Sound
Jean-Paul Mugel
Editing by
Patricia Mazuy
Music by
Joanna Bruzdowicz
Assistant director
Jacques Royer
Assistant director
Jacques Deschamps
Set design by
Jean Bauer
Set design by
Anne Violet
Costumes
Rosalie Varda

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Explore

Agnès Varda

Writer, Director

Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda

The only female director of the French New Wave, Agnès Varda has been called both the movement’s mother and its grandmother. The fact that some have felt the need to assign her a specifically feminine role, and the confusion over how to characterize that role, speak to just how unique her place in this hallowed cinematic movement—defined by such decidedly masculine artists as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut—is. Varda not only made films during the nouvelle vague, she helped inspire it. Her self-funded debut, the fiction-documentary hybrid 1956’s La Pointe Courte is often considered the unofficial first New Wave film; when she made it, she had no professional cinema training (her early work included painting, sculpting, and photojournalism). Though not widely seen, the film got her commissions to make several documentaries in the late fifties. In 1962, she released the seminal nouvelle vague film Cléo from 5 to 7; a bold character study that avoids psychologizing, it announced her official arrival. Over the coming decades, Varda became a force in art cinema, conceiving many of her films as political and feminist statements, and using a radical objectivity to create her unforgettable characters. She describes her style as cinécriture (writing on film), and it can be seen in formally audacious fictions like Le bonheur and Vagabond as well as more ragged and revealing autobiographical documentaries like The Gleaners and I and The Beaches of Agnès.

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