Varda’s international breakthrough film shows, in real time, an hour and a half in the life of a singer as she travels across Paris while waiting for the results of a biopsy. Vain, childish and selfish at the start, Cleo’s journey through Paris is also a journey of self-discovery—she transforms in the course of the film from a passive woman on whom others’ expectations are projected into an active participant in her own life. Cleo’s metamorphosis is reflected in her movements through Paris; the film’s first half is dominated by a shopping excursion in which Cleo is surrounded by mirrors, and in the second half, she literally sheds her false image in order to actively observe the city, eventually striking up a friendship with a soldier on leave.