Transports privés: Claire Denis’s Vendredi soir and the Mobile Urban Woman in French Cinema

Abstract

If one of the recurrent figures of recent French cinema has been that of the wanderer, what counts as a minor genre within this category are films featuring mobile women. Whereas movies starring males offer a variety of journeys for their displaced heroes, recurrent motifs in the lives of the mobile woman include prostitution, madness and violence. Presenting a different perspective is Claire Denis’s 2002 feature Vendredi soir, which recounts the story of Laure, a 30-something woman who gets caught in a traffic jam the night before she is to move in with her partner. On a freezing Parisian night, Laure offers a lift to the mysterious Jean with whom she has a one-night stand. With reference to the writing of Ross Chambers, this paper will read Laure in the tradition of the flâneuse, one who traces a significantly different path from that of her French cinematic forebears.