This was a tough watch for me, not particularly because it's unsettling (don't get me wrong; it is) but because I saw myself in Cléo and I did not like it.
Coming of age in late stage capitalism means constantly feeling like you're running out of time; nothing can be truly satisfying when a ticking countdown to impending doom hangs over your head. Being a woman in literally any time epoch means constant performance; your existence is a spectacle, to be played up for emotionally-distant boyfriends and friends you haven't seen in a while and strangers in cafés and even your own mirrored reflection. The fear, the hopelessness, the helplessness— that is saved for strangers in empty parks.
I'm sad, and I'm scared, and I don't particularly feel like being alive right now. But in 1962, Agnès Varda stripped bare the female experience and presented it to the masses, with neither objectification, idealization nor vilification of the heroine, so I guess I have to keep living.
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