''Vagabond'' (french: Sans toit ni loi, "with neither shelter nor law") is a 1985 French

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda (; born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928 – 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film ...

, featuring

Sandrine Bonnaire Sandrine Bonnaire (; born 31 May 1967) is a French actress, film director and screenwriter who has appeared in more than 40 films. She won the César Award for Most Promising Actress for '' À Nos Amours'' (1983), the César Award for Best Actre ...

. It tells the story of a young woman, a

vagabond Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

, who wanders through the

Languedoc-Roussillon wine Languedoc-Roussillon wine, including the ''vin de pays'' labeled ''Vin de Pays d'Oc'', is produced in southern France. While "Languedoc" can refer to a specific historic region of France and Northern Catalonia, usage since the 20th century (esp ...

country one winter. The film premiered at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival, where it won the

Golden Lion The Golden Lion ( it, Leone d'oro) is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguishe ...

. ''Vagabond'' was nominated for four

César Awards The César Award is the national film award of France. It is delivered in the ' ceremony and was first awarded in 1976. The nominations are selected by the members of twelve categories of filmmaking professionals and supported by the French Min ...

, with Bonnaire winning

Best Actress Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress aw ...

. The film was the 36th highest-grossing film of the year with a total of 1,080,143 admissions in France.

Plot

The film begins with the contorted body of a young woman lying in a ditch, covered in frost. From this image, an unseen interviewer (Varda) puts the camera on the last men to see her and the one who found her. The action then flashes back to the woman, Mona, walking along the roadside, hiding from the police and trying to get a ride. Along her journey she takes up with other vagabonds as well as a Tunisian vineyard worker, a family of goat farmers, an

agronomy Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and ...

professor, and a maid who envies what she perceives to be Mona's beautiful and passionate lifestyle. Mona explains to one of her temporary companions that at one time she was a secretary in Paris but became unsettled with the way she was living, choosing instead to wander the country, free from any responsibility. Her condition worsens until she finally falls where we first encounter herin a ditch, frozen to death.

Cast

as Mona Bergeron *

Macha Méril Macha Méril (; born Princess Maria-Magdalena Vladimirovna Gagarina on 3 September 1940) is a French actress and writer. Biography Méril is descended by her father from the Russian princely house Gagarin and by her mother from a Ukrainian nob ...

as Mme Landier *

Yolande Moreau Yolande Moreau (born 27 February 1953) is a Belgian comedian, actress, film director and screenwriter. She has won three César Awards from four nominations. Career She made her cinematic debut with director Agnès Varda in two movies: Sept pi� ...

as Yolande *

Stéphane Freiss Stéphane Freiss (born 22 November 1960) is a French film, television, and stage actor. He won a César Award for his performance in the 1988 film ''Chouans!''. Selected filmography *'' Premiers désirs'' (1984) *'' Vagabond'' (1985) *''Chou ...

as Jean-Pierre * Setti Ramdane as Assoun * Francis Balchère as Police * Jean-Louis Perletti as Police * Urbain Causse as Farmer * Christophe Alcazar as Farmer * Joël Fosse as Paulo * Patrick Schmit as Truck Driver * Daniel Bos as Demolition Worker * Katy Champaud as Girl at the Pump * Raymond Roulle as Old Man with Matches * Henri Fridlani as The Gravedigger * Patrick Sokol as Young Man with Sandwich * Pierre Imbert as Mechanic

Critical reception

The film was acclaimed by critics. Review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reports that 100% of 20 critics gave the film a positive review, for an average rating of 8.8/10.

Style

''Vagabond'' combines straightforward narrative scenes, in which we see Mona living her life, with

pseudo-documentary A pseudo-documentary or fake documentary is a film or video production that takes the form or style of a documentary film but does not portray real events. Rather, scripted and fictional elements are used to tell the story. The pseudo-documentary, ...

sequences in which people who knew Mona turn to the camera and say what they remember about her. Significant events are sometimes left unshown, so that the viewer must piece information together to gain a full picture. It was filmed in the departments of

Gard Gard () is a department in Southern France, located in the region of Occitanie. It had a population of 748,437 as of 2019;Hérault Hérault (; oc, Erau, ) is a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France. Named after the Hérault River, its prefecture is Montpellier. It had a population of 1,175,623 in 2019.Bouches-du-Rhône Bouches-du-Rhône ( , , ; oc, Bocas de Ròse ; "Mouths of the Rhône") is a department in Southern France. It borders Vaucluse to the north, Gard to the west and Var to the east. The Mediterranean Sea lies to the south. Its prefecture and large ...

The title

The original French title, ''Sans toit ni loi'' (''With neither Shelter nor Law''), is a play on a common French idiom, "sans foi ni loi", meaning "with neither faith nor law". It also puns on ''sans toi'' ("without you").

Awards and nominations

Notes

References

External links

* * *
''Vagabond''
an essay by Sandy Flitterman-Lewis at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

{{Authority control 1985 films 1980s drama road movies 1980s feminist films Films about wine 1980s French-language films Golden Lion winners Films directed by Agnès Varda Films featuring a Best Actress César Award-winning performance French drama road movies 1985 drama films French feminist films 1980s French films