Vagabond and Counter-Cinema
“…Varda presents us with woman’s image demystified, and the effect is far from soothing for the other characters, particularly for the men. She upsets the trajectory of objectification and its bolstering of the system, and turns the look back toward the camera and the spectator.”
Vagabond as a film disrupts the male gaze and how women are looked at by making the main character and her journey the focus of the movie. The character is not obsessed with men, and the movie does not focus on a any part of her as a sexual being. She is simply a woman on a journey, alone. The film also runs counter to the male gaze in the ways in which Mona reacts to the treatment that she recieves from men. She ignores or rebuts their comments when they focus on her as a woman- for example, at the beginning of the movie when the driver that she hitches a ride from kicks her out after his comment about there being a bunk in the back of the truck and she replies unfavorably. She keeps a low profile throughout the movie- no makeup, dirty, dressed all in black, and quiet. She tries not to catch people's attention unless she needs something, and if that occurs, she is very forward in the ways in which she expresses those needs. Mona gives off the appearance of being self-sufficient and independent, which is the total opposite of how she would be presented if the film were to be oriented towards the male gaze and its themes.