Sans Toit
Ni Loi or Vagabond (1985)
The name of the main
character of Agnes Varda’s Sans Toit Ni Loi
is Mona or Justine (because she changed her name from Justine to
Mona, she says). Although the French title's translation is "No Shelter No
Law" in non-Francophone countries it was released as Vagabond.
I think I have first seen it at a film festival in Istanbul or Ankara but this
revisit was glorious. I entirely enjoyed the mastery in it. Mona is 'the
vagabond' whose seeming freedom is mostly but briefly envied by others who
speak or report to the camera about Mona since the movie is the chronicle of a
death foretold. It is a woman’s story via testimonies of others whom she came
into contact one way or another. Mona’s indifference and unapologetic attitude
can be compared to Joe (the
protagonist of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac) for the audience who
are familiar with both.
As a young woman wanderer,
Mona spreads unease. Through the small talk that most drivers or men who give
her daily or hourly cash-in-hand jobs had with her, we learn that Mona
quit her job as a secretary and took off on the road to nowhere with her tent
on her back, sleeping in fields, on roadsides, deserted houses. We witness some
hard times when she most likely sells sex and gets raped too. She remains
always defiant, faintly mutinous, uncaring, enigmatic. As she says, “I don’t
care – I move on”.
The amazing Agnès Varda renders the audience as
her observers, and we are (I as for one) led to feel uneasy with our
helplessness and detachment from a character whose life has been detailed by
the others; yet, whose thoughts remains buried. Mona is a “rahat” woman
but doesn’t give the impression that she is comfortable or at ease with herself
or with the world except a few occasions.
Among the dozens of
characters whom she meets on the road, I will remember particularly the two. A
stylish academic (Macha Méril) encounters Mona and agrees to drive her around,
lets her sleep in the car, buys her good food etc. Her job is to diagnose the
sick trees in Southern France and report to her team so that the diseased trees
can be logged and cleared (anything symbolic there?). She is disgusted by
Mona’s smell but is too polite to ask her to get out of the car, yet, also
fascinated by her. Not once we hear Mona thanking her or showing appreciation,
not even after she hands Mona groceries and some money before the drop off.
The second one is a hippy
with an MA in Philosophy and his girlfriend. They raise goats and make cheese,
and they happen to like Mona who asks for a place to crash for one night. They
offer her some land to work and a caravan to live in because earlier, Mona
tells the guy that she wants to grow potatoes for future, an almost shockingly
simple dream. But they are deeply irritated and disappointed when Mona shows no
inclination to get out of bed in the mornings. This man tells Mona that, for
all the romantic notions, life on the road, combined with its ruthless poverty,
is a kind of living death. I agree and consider the family’s offer as a truly
missed opportunity. In fact, that setting seems to be only place where she
could combine her readings and daydreaming with gardening. I even thought of
Voltaire’s Candide ou l'Optimisme when Mona too
was surprised that the guy was once a traveller like herself and
studied philosophy. He managed to find a mid-way (as is clearly expressed) and
was empathetic with Mona’s ways.
Whether Mona is a
determined free spirit or just a lost soul is up to the viewer to decide but it
is not an easy conclusion to make. Her story's end (or the movie’s beginning,
that is, a frozen corpse) is nothing like the attractive hitchhikers in Even
Cowgirls Get the Blues (Gus Van Sant, 1993) or In
July (Fatih Akın, 2000). Mona is an unusual and memorable one who
defies most women representations in movies or in real life for that matter.
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