The Danger of the Road
"Varda subverts the traditional codes of classical narrative cinema which dipicts man as the gender on the move and women as static." (Hayward, pg. 288).
Easy Rider established that, for men, the road can be mean both their freedom and their ultimate destruction. In Vagabond, we get the chance to see what the road can mean for a woman, and surprisingly, it has a very similar result. Both movies emphasis the freedom that is associated with being on the road, and both show the fatal results of living on the fringes of society. Apart from this basic concept, the journey of the characters in these movies is vastly altered by their gender. In Easy Rider, the men controlled their own freedom which was symbolized by their motorcycles. However, in Vagabond, Mona is forced to rely on others for trasportation which dramatically limits her own freedom and makes her much more vulnerable. So while their journeys were very different, their ends were similar, and why is this? It is because, regardless of gender, the road is a dangerous place. These dangers are not exclusively limited to men or to women, but confront all people who take to the road. By making the woman mobile, we are able to realize that it is not a matter of gender, but a matter of human nature.