Let’s get it out of the way: Yes, the title is technically misleading because the real-time journey of the heroine through Paris as she awaits some potentially life-threatening medical results is actually only an hour and a half. But, that’s about the only bad thing you can say about this French New Wave classic, which Pauline Kael described as “one of the few films directed by a woman in which the viewer can sense a difference.” An ostensible slice-of-life melodrama and simultaneous document of Parisian life in the early 1960s, Cléo From 5 to 7 is at its heart a moving portrait of true, soul-stirring awakening as Cléo ceases to be an object for others and comes to terms with her own subjectivity. (DVD)