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| Sandrine Bonnaire as Mona |
Seeing this film for the first time when I was 17 years old hit me with full force and has haunted me ever since. The astonishing performance by Sandrine Bonnaire (as Mona) and skillful brilliance of Varda’s filmmaking left an indelible impression on me. Mona’s complex relationship with conformity and her agitation against it, her often clear desires for security and chaos, unrepentant debauchery and fearless manipulation (for what I believe to be acts of self preservation), made her a most unforgettable anti-hero for me as a young woman coming of age in the mid 1980’s.
Throughout the film we follow Mona - drifter and unforgettable urban rebel - as she makes her way through various towns and (fittingly) winter landscapes. Never once did I care to know why she was on this journey, just captivated in the momentum of her present experiences. She was on a wild, sometimes violent journey, but one of her own making and on her own terms. Her spirit of ultimate independence and indifference of how and what to be, resonated deeply with me and I took great pleasure at the radical inappropriateness she inspired.
But in the end her outsiderness proves to be too great. As the film still (above) shows her worn-down vulnerability, she looks out towards a bleak and unforgiving horizon - one I have become familiar with from living in the frozen wastelands of North York - But with all of life’s nasty realities starting to implode upon her – ending with a final devastating collapse in a frozen farmers field. And like everything else Mona experiences, the promise of fertile bounty is kept far from reach - almost like Persephone falling to her end.
Now as an adult carefully examining how to preserve my own life, I live far removed from Mona’s kind of recklessness and insubordination. However, today for various reasons, I hold her spirit close to me, lingering on her fierce determination, vulnerabilities, and shameless independence.
Throughout the film we follow Mona - drifter and unforgettable urban rebel - as she makes her way through various towns and (fittingly) winter landscapes. Never once did I care to know why she was on this journey, just captivated in the momentum of her present experiences. She was on a wild, sometimes violent journey, but one of her own making and on her own terms. Her spirit of ultimate independence and indifference of how and what to be, resonated deeply with me and I took great pleasure at the radical inappropriateness she inspired.
But in the end her outsiderness proves to be too great. As the film still (above) shows her worn-down vulnerability, she looks out towards a bleak and unforgiving horizon - one I have become familiar with from living in the frozen wastelands of North York - But with all of life’s nasty realities starting to implode upon her – ending with a final devastating collapse in a frozen farmers field. And like everything else Mona experiences, the promise of fertile bounty is kept far from reach - almost like Persephone falling to her end.
Now as an adult carefully examining how to preserve my own life, I live far removed from Mona’s kind of recklessness and insubordination. However, today for various reasons, I hold her spirit close to me, lingering on her fierce determination, vulnerabilities, and shameless independence.