- published: 19 Jun 2012
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Vagabond (French: Sans toit ni loi, "without roof no law" = "outlawed") is a 1985 drama film directed by Agnès Varda, featuring Sandrine Bonnaire. It describes the story of a young woman, a vagabond, who wanders through French wine country one winter. The film was the 36th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 1,080,143 admissions in France.
The film begins with the contorted body of the woman, covered in frost. From this image, an unseen and unheard interviewer puts the camera on the last men to see her and the ones who found her. The action then flashes back to the woman, Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire) walking along the roadside, hiding from the police and trying to get a ride. Along her journey she meets and takes up with other vagabonds such as herself as well as a Tunisian vineyard worker, a family of goat farmers, a professor researching trees, and a maid who envies what she perceives to be a beautiful and passionate lifestyle. Mona explains to one of her temporary companions that at one time she had an office job in Paris and did very well for herself, but she became unsettled with the way she was living—choosing instead to wander the country free from any responsibility, picking up what she could to survive as she goes. Throughout the film, Mona's condition seems to become progressively worse until she finally falls where we first saw her, frozen and entrenched in her misery in a ditch.