Agnès Varda is commonly associated with the Nouvelle Vague and more than François Truffaut, Jean-Luc "God Ard" or Eric Rohmer, she delivered some of the jewels of this French trend with "Cléo De 5 à 7" (1961). It doesn't mean that everything she made turned into gold. One can skip "les Créatures" (1966) without remorse. Twenty years later, she issued her strongest work since "Cléo De 5 à 7" which justifiably dominated from an artistic perspective French cinematographic production: "Sans Toi Ni Loi" that caused a stir.

It works as an alternation of flashes-back and interviews with people about their recollections involving a female rambler named Mona. We won't know much about herself. After she passed her high school diploma, she started to work for different bosses as a secretary but grew tired of his job. So, she packed in to leave for adventure through odd jobs. However, Varda's heroine keeps all her mystery and ambiguity. Are we really sure about what she says? Doesn't she lie? The female filmmaker doesn't comfort the audience because as the elements of the puzzle are pieced together, she throws the people who met Mona out in the same basket, either it is this university professor, this Maroccan guest worker or this former philosophy student who believed in the events of May 1968 in France: they are all responsible for Mona's death because of their egoism, their lack of communication with her. Varda delivers a similar message to her 1961 film: loneliness is a burden and it's better to open oneself to others to make things improve.

"Sans Toi Ni Loi" has the form of a documentary with a gritty tonality in which the female filmmaker keeps a certain distance with her heroine and everything she goes through. Thanks to this, tawdry or violent sequences take another dimension like the moment when the garage owner leaves Mona's tent pulling up his trousers or the man who rapes her in the woods. We won't see the horrid act.

Varda hired non-professional actors and that's why her film has a larger than life feel. An impression accentuated by Sandrine Bonnaire's sensational performance. She "lives" more than she acts her role. The role of this rambler fits her like a glove.

This is one that can stand multiple viewings.

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.