Vagabond
Reviewer Royal Brown comments, that “the unremittingly bleak Vagabond, whose French title, Sans toit ni loi, translates literally as `Without Roof or Law,’ reconstructs the story of a young woman named Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire) who, in the film’s opening sequence, is found frozen to death in a ditch” (Brown 56). The title “Without Roof or Law” maybe a clue as to why an intelligent young woman may want to leave her home and live out on the streets. One can compare her journey to the one that two young men make in On the Road by Jack Kerouac. The two characters Sal and Dean do the same thing Mona does. They reject the life of stability in order to be free.
Dean in On the Road calls this “it”. He is constantly on the move to find “it”. He leaves his wife several times, his children and friends to find this never reaching it. Mona finds herself in potentially stable situations. She finds herself at a farm and the man offers his trailer to stay and part of his field to grow potatoes. Instead of taking him up on his offer she rejects working, and he eventually kicks her out. Despite the fact that the farmer cannot understand her, he still can admit that she is freer then he is.
Mona is intelligent even though she has not finished school. Interestingly she tells the farmer who has a Masters that if she had an education she would not be working at a farm. However Mona has dropped out of school. While it is obvious she is a smart girl, she rejects traditional schooling and the social constraints placed on her. Despite that she is charming and even though she is homeless she is captivating to those she encounters. Dean also rejects school even though he does have a love of learning, particularly philosophy that he learns mostly from his friends. Sal, who is educated, rejects settled life numerous times to run off with Dean. Dean is unreliable and many times selfish, however people like to be around him. There appears to be a motif of while rejecting traditional schooling and social norms one can still be a leader and someone that people are drawn to.
Mona seems to also share with Dean this discomfort to being vulnerable. The only real emotion Mona displays is when she falls into the ditch. She finally breaks down and cries before she freezes to death. Dean likewise has difficulties showing true emotion to the point he pushes most of his friends away. This inability to really reach out to others can cause some to become extremely introverted and make it harder for them to relate to others. Mona says bits and pieces that indicate that she had a difficult time with her family life. The fact this is not spelled out in the film is quite effective. One never truly knows why a person chooses the path that they take. The people who reflect on their encounter with Mona only scrape the surface of the young woman. “Over and above Varda’s classic narrative/documentary ambiguities, however, Vagabond brilliantly reverses ingrained habits both of viewing images and of experiencing narrative” (ibid). Sometimes what the others remember may contradict what really was going on with the young woman. Dean was always seeking his father (who they never find I the book). Since Sal is the narrator, we never really what is going on in Dean’s head. We can only make assumptions. The story of Mona leaves us with so many questions. Did she have a such a bad life at home that she would risk her life to be homeless? Perhaps it’s more to that. Perhaps Mona was simply seeking to be free. Her need to keep moving, like Dean’s, overrode anything else. This need to be free was more powerful then having relationships or a home. Perhaps it wasn’t just running away, but running toward something. Nether characters ever find “it”. But maybe the journey itself is “it”.
Works Cited
Brown, Royal. “Disc and Tape Reviews.” Cineaste, 23.4 (1998): 56-57.
Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York, N.Y: Viking, 2007.
