Sans toit ni loi (1985)

Director:

Agnès Varda

Writer:

Agnès Varda (writer)

Release Date:

16 May 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In winter in the south of France, a young woman is found frozen in a ditch. She's ill kempt, a vagabond...

Plot Keywords:

Vagrant | Tent | Brandy | Chain Smoking | Climb Through Window

Awards:

8 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Sandrine Bonnaire	...	Mona Bergeron, sans toit ni loi
Setti Ramdane	...	le marocaine qui la trouve
Francis Balchère	...	un gendarme
Jean-Louis Perletti	...	un autre
Urbain Causse	...	un paysan interrogé
Christophe Alcazar	...	un autre, brûleyrr de fossé
Dominique Durand	...	le premier motard
Joël Fosse	...	l'autre, Paulo, amant de Yolande
Patrick Schmit	...	le camionneur
Daniel Bos	...	Le démolisseur
Katy Champaud	...	le jeune fille à la pompe
Raymond Roulle	...	le vieux aux allumettes
Henri Fridlani	...	le fossoyeur
Patrick Sokol	...	le jaune homme au sandwich
Pierre Imbert	...	le garagiste

Also Known As:

Vagabond (USA)
Without Roof or Rule (literal English title)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

UK | France

Language:

Arabic | French | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:R | West Germany:12

Company:

Channel Four Films

Movie Connections:

References Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962)

Soundtrack:

Sur la mer toujours recommencée calmée

Sublime poetry for the senses

sans toit ni loi ( without a roof nor rule) by Agnes Varda

Visual poetry in films is rarely sublime.Mostly its an interpretation that is fed to us either by the director of the film or some high-faultin critic who manages to see color in sepiated walls.The rare film that manages to transcend leaves you speechless with nothing to say as words fail to capture the essence , beauty and enigma of that film. All you can say is today I was blessed. Like a born again christian or a corpulent evangelist you wish to celebrate your new found faith with words , gestures , anything that says to the director of the film, you gave me a day of absolute completeness today and a film that will forever stay with me like unrequited love. That transcendental, evocative , sensitive , visually dazzling , transcendence is sans toit ni loi by agnes Varda. The film as has been pointed out is the cinematic equivalent of ulysses . Like James Joyce , varda lets rip a stream of consciousness that is disturbing , sincere and beautifully sublime.The protoganist is a young female drifter, a vagabond who is eternally free. She requires human contact only to fulfill her basic needs and her solitude is complete and absolute , accentuated by her complete disdain for authority or advise.The people she meets are all left with indelible memories of her.Those that pity her are later assailed by thier own infirmities. She refuses to blend or compromise and as one character says is perpetually withering.She dies alone and uncared for and she leaves absolutely no conventional emotional baggage behind.This isnt about a hippie , or a bum , or a dope addict or just a mentally unsound person. Its about a compassionate person who choses to abnegate all her social bonds and moral barriers and lives for nothing more than basic survival. She is the eternal soul that is freedom. Pure , absolute and totally decadent freedom.