Vagabond and Counter-Cinema
As put by David Laderman,
“Vagabond features a Road Woman – perhaps the genre’s first serious queen of the Road”
Within Agnes Varda’s landmark feminist critique film Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi) there are various elements that embrace the cinematic techniques and narrative structure of a feminist counter-cinema film. At the start of the picture, it seems that, like most films, the look will be primarily from the male perspective with Mona emerging from the sea in a silhouetted light of the day that seems to embrace the phallocentric view of men. However, from that point on, the film begins to disrupt the power of the male gaze by having Mona reject the phallocentric dominance of men over women through her look, body language, actions, and dialogue. One of the most pronounced actions of Mona is her ability to initiate most actions; begging for rides, asking for water, and beginning the look between herself and other people, specifically male. Throughout the film Mona is the one to initiate a gaze between her and a male, being the one to stare down the image of another, instead of having it be the other way around. In addition, with certain people, Mona rejects the attention and gaze others may give to her through her body language and sudden shift of attention, such as when she enters a local diner and begins a gaze at a young man, but as soon as he reciprocates the gaze back, leaves him to ponder at the bar. With relevance to rejecting a certain gaze within the film, Mona also formulates the narrative structure of a feminist counter-cinema by being the main force to drive and facilitate the plot. Mona does not answer to anyone but herself, and only for brief moments does a male have a link to the drive and survival of her life. David Laderman’s description of Vagabond is dead on; Mona fits at the first queen of the road.