Watch Vagabond For Free

Memorable, crazy movie

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I've seen several films by Agnès Varda and this one is pretty much what I expected...unfortunately. While Varda is loved by some, her films have a very non-cinematic quality. That makes her work very much the stuff artsy folk often like but which have no broad appeal. To many of her fans, she is a genius with her documentary and documentary style films. As for me, her work just doesn't do much for me. This isn't necessarily a criticism...just the truth that these style films just don't excite me in any way...possibly because he subject matter is often so mundane.When "Vagabond" begins, a young lady is found dead in a trench...dead, apparently, from exposure. The film then backtracks a few days and shows this woman's life up to her untimely death. Mona is what folks used to call a hobo...a person without a home who likes the life of the open road. She'll work when she has to...but only enough to get her a bit to eat, some alcohol, some cigarettes or some drugs. But for the most part she enjoys a subsistence life- -one with no real connections. The film shows her many interactions with others and some of the folks she met are interviewed. It's all fiction but done in a way that appears to be a documentary. Is there any real point to all this? I dunno...but I assume Varda's point is that there is no point...a sad look into a sad life. I was assuming I'd develop a connection...a sense of caring about this dead woman...but this was not to be. Instead, it's an oddly detached film.If this sounds like a depressing film, then you pretty much get the drift of the movie. It's unpleasant and mildly interesting. If you look at the reviews, most folks seem to love her work but I also suspect these are Varda-philes. As for me, I adore French films but not this type. I would have much preferred a more fake, glossy and cinematic project...perhaps one like Varda's deceased husband, Jacques Demy, would have made.

It's winter, off tourist season in the south of France. A frozen young female vagabond is found in a ditch. The police investigates and interviews various people. In flashbacks, Mona Bergeron (Sandrine Bonnaire) is drifting aimlessly on the road encountering various people.There is a free flowing meandering quality to the movie. The tension is provided by the fact that the audience already knows that she's going to die. It becomes like a countdown as we wonder how she ends up at the side of the road. It's good that Bonnaire isn't the supermodel type although she could be a little rougher. Mona is a hustler and not necessarily a victim. There is an overall sense of dread and sadness that permeates the movie.

I was rather interested in Agnes Varda's work, seeing that she is one of the few female directors who are still remembered to this day. I was not disappointed as I witnessed this beautiful documented portrait of a free soul. The fact that Mona is a woman is a crucial point to the movie – and it is remarked by mostly all of the characters - as it affects every circumstance involving her journey, but the feeling that sticks is that she is, firstly, a free soul who "came from the sea". The original French title is much more meaningful, saying "without roof or law".It appears that she never could conform to the rules set by society, especially those set for women, and so she decided to walk. It is never revealed her exact reasons to have abandoned her previous life neither anything substantial about her past, but it's interesting to notice how even to one of the persons she encounters along the way, who was once a walker himself, she seems too wild. He, as a good philosopher, tells her she has no ideological base to her lifestyle, which ends up serving a system she claims to despise. But she simply turns her head and goes on walking.We follow her journey as she encounters several different people and affects their life in a different manner. It's a sensitive plot, but Mona's life is not romanticized, and from the first scene we know it's going to be a difficult story to watch. I find it amazing that every aspect of her life is shown with equal veracity, without any moralizing subtext. It's a piece of reality, and we are reminded of that at all times, and so she encounters a bitter end, and we are left wondering why it seems to be reserved to those who have the courage to subvert from society somehow.

The definition of "vagabond" is some who wanders from place to place without any settled home, leading an unsettled or carefree life, so when I found that out I was intrigued to see what this French film featured in the 1001 Movies You See Before You Die book would offer, from director Agnès Varda (Cleo from 5 to 7, The Gleaners & I). Basically it is the winter in the south of France, and the body of dead woman, frozen to death, is found in a ditch, her identity is unknown, but people in the community recognise her from numerous encounters but never really finding out who she was. Through flashbacks we see how the dead woman wound up in the village and surrounding areas, beginning when the woman, Mona Bergeron (Sandrine Bonnaire), was walking along the road trying to hitch a ride and hide from the police, and in her journey she meets the numerous people who later recognised her. These people include fellow vagabonds like her, a Tunisian vineyard worker, a family of goat farmers, a professor researching trees and a maid who envies her because of her beauty and a way for men, and a few of these male encounters she seduces either for gain or pleasure. Mona explains to one her short term companions that she did originally have a real life, working in a post office in Paris with a good lifestyle, but she became unsettled and wanted to get away from the world of responsibility and care for herself wandering the country free. Obviously there are consequences to this carefree, unplanned and unallocated life choice, and over time she slowly becomes very ill, most likely due to bad treatment by some people and lack of good food, and this inevitably leads to where we found her at the beginning, falling into the ditch, miserable and freezing, and eventually giving up and dying. Also starring Macha Méril as Madame Landier, Yolande Moreau as Yolande, Stéphane Freiss as Jean-Pierre, Marthe Jarnias as Aunt Lydie and Joël Fosse as Paulo. The performance by Bonnaire as the mysterious stranger who encounters many people without telling much about herself and disappearing again is interesting, you are not sure whether to empathise or sympathise with her in whatever life she has, it is a simple enough story about someone living off the grid, it doesn't have any real plot as such, maybe why it got a little confusing sometimes, but it is a watchable mystery drama. Good!