Javal Renoir

Looking at the cover from Wanda Sá's Vagamente the first thing I feel is a sense of emptiness. The sky is white with a few touches of blue, formless clouds like a fog, a blur in the distance. The sea, save for a shy wave, is completely plane. The sand, damp and creased, seems like a flattened brain on which Wanda – eyes frowned, blinded by the clarity of the sun – drags her guitar and her feet. The title, spread diagonally to fill the space left bare by the non-clouds, is ‘Vagamente’, meaning according to googletranslations ‘vaguely’ or ‘vacantly’.

The voice of the singer, as Kumi describes, is not forced but to me it does not convey a sense of idleness, it conveys a sense of boredom. And although I find the song agreeable, it is also somewhat quite unsettling. This girl seems to be bored out of her brains; probably why she ends up walking on it.
It reminds me of the main female characters in early Godard films: Camille Javal in Le Mepris, Marianne Renoir in Pierrot le Fou.

I guess women at the time, after an emergent second wave of feminism, were still trapped between the promise of freedom and what was actually happening for most of them... Nothing. No way near equality. No wonder they felt depressed. Well, I realise it is the way that Godard has decided to portray his female character at the time but anyway, I feel I can trust him as a social observer. 1964-1965, What am I gonna do? I don't know what to do. Maybe you should sniff some glue.

*Pierrot le Fou directed by Jean-Luc Godard, with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina