On screen, the folks who meet Mona testify how the experience affected them. Women - an intellectual environmental activist; a dowdy young maid; a decrepit spinster - find themselves especially touched by what they see in her: a passionate soul, a free spirit. Even in her dirty, coarse state, Mona is the woman she wants to be, no longer chained to society's grind, without portfolio but not lost, either. Of course, Varda is asking what freedom means anymore. What, consequently, does feminism?
A humanist filmmaker with a collector's eye
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The film anticipates everything from "Thelma & Louise" to "Wendy and Lucy." It's the movie that "The Piano" director Jane Campion seems to have devoted her career, in vain, to top - and Campion has had a great career. But only Mike Leigh's grimmer "Naked," from 1993, comes as close to Varda's forlorn bulletin on the human condition. Mona stands in for ideas of liberty and incivility, but Varda never loses sight of Mona as a person. She's always somebody's daughter, friend, former co-worker - a symbol maybe, a cipher never.
That is essentially what separates Agnès Varda from the intellectuals and stylists who have come up with and around her. She's a people person. And, naturally, no matter how many movies we see in the dark, Varda knows how much truer people are in the light.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/movienation.
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