kevindpetty This film is filled with scenes of nature. It is tempting to see these as symbolically mirroring the "naturalness" of the sexually open relationship that Francois seeks with his wife Therese and mistress Emilie; however, Francois, his wife, and his children are usually seen in the outdoors while Francois and Emilie occupy private and public, unnatural spaces. So, it is the traditional family that is aligned with nature in this film rather than the open relationship.Furthermore, the possibility of an open relationship extends only to Francois, with Therese and Emilie expected to serve as his devoted objects of desire, similar to sister wives.After fooling around behind his wife's back for a month, Francois offers his wife a shockingly nonchalant confession, and with childlike innocence seems to expect Therese to forgive him and let him continue philandering. It seems she does, with a smile, before excusing herself to pick some flowers. I understood her decision to leave to signify her refusal of this proposed one-sided open relationship.Francois searches for her when she does not return, to find her drowned in a nearby stream, a la Ophelia. I understood this as a suicide in reaction to Francois's confession. Nevertheless, with Therese gone, Francois' extended family meets to decide who will adopt Francois' children as if a single man is incapable of both working and raising children (by contrast, before she died, Therese raised the children and created dresses on the side while Francois was working and philandering).In the end, no adoption is necessary because Emilie, who earlier stated that she did not want a permanent relationship, now Stepford-like, turns into a docile pseudo-Therese (whom she physically resembles), and happily agrees to marry Francois and take care of his kids. Additionally, she seems to give up her wire service job (which I saw as a symbol of her feminist independence), and adopts Therese's home-based dressmaking business.Many reviews of this film remark how sexually progressive its supposed depiction of open relationships was; but I think it is the same old patriarchal portrayal of a man, not women and not the other men in the film, deciding that his desire trumps his wife's.

chaos-rampant This goes in my list of most important works. Varda soars, showing herself to be among the masters who truly understand appearances. They're no simple thing. Image is not just the depicted thing, for those who know how to use it, it's the whole space leading up to the eye that includes the mind that we bring to it, great filmmakers try to work that space. If we arrive anywhere, it's because we walked. Lesser films comfortably carry us a little down the way, or not at all. This one will take you far and leave you there to ponder on what this new place is, but you have to walk through that space.The departure point is an idyllic happiness given to us with pastoral colors in the countryside, a husband and wife with their two kids are frolicking under the sun, everything picture perfect, a mythic eden.Now comes the journey. They drive back to the city, concrete begins to loom from the corner of the windshield, we imagine that here happiness will be tainted, life has to be more complex than everyone being happy. Our expectation is left hanging, they're still perfectly happy in their little home.Soon the man meets another woman in the phone office one day, they go on a date. We imagine that now there's going to be drama, duplicity. No dice again, the man explains to her that he loves his wife no less, that love for him only adds up to encompass both. He looks honest, she accepts it. We strain to imagine dishonesty just the same, some secret misgiving for her.There's a paean here to boundless love, love that is not ego or possessiveness but simply joy, Varda renders this as couples dancing in a tavern and freely swapping partners. Politics of love are only a small part of its appeal for me, no there's something more powerful here.So the wife queries her husband who looks even happier these days, they're back in that idyllic patch of nature, he can't lie, he confesses. Finally we expect to see heartbreak, betrayal, hurt, but again no, she looks apprehensive but quickly seems to accept it, she says she's happy that he is, they have sex, fall asleep. But when he wakes up something has happened.This is the story in a hurry, the rest when you see it.This is rife for profound meditation that goes beyond opposites. Is this happiness that we see? Or maybe a better question, where is the unhappiness? At so many points in the story we imagine drama, expect it, that is how life comes to be, and yet at every point drama is waved away. We'd like to accept a life without regrets perhaps, but do we? Immediately we have complete dismantling of the melodrama, but we have something else too.Varda has filmed a story trusting that we'll imagine all the other things, which she can leave out. She teases out only enough, a brief look of disappointment in the two women, the notion that she carried flowers down to the river. We inhabit both stories, the one we see, the other which we foreshadow behind appearances, so that all the tension becomes ours, internal. We strive to see the lying man, the betrayed wife, maybe we do. Is this happiness? Is it not? Is it?There's more than social critique here, make no mistake, or it wouldn't haunt (even more than Vertigo). It's because it makes you walk, live, through your own mind all the way to heartbreaking betrayal and you can't unlive it. In the end Varda films the last part from the river onwards as if nothing has changed between the new pair, but something has. Has it? Does he grieve? Does he not? Who is it that tells you one or the other, or that it has to be one? Or will you just see a painted parable?Something to meditate upon.

janosj-1 'Happiness' is the best translation of the title for this brilliant, sad but complete movie. I saw it when I was happily married and worked for a huge publishing company. Later in life I saw the other films made by Agnes Varda. They all were very deep and made me emotional. The scene of the suicide in 'Le Bonheur' is filmed as a kind of hidden action of a woman who did not understand that her husband had so much love to give. I still don't understand WHAT made this movie so unbelievably brilliant. Maybe I should buy a DVD if available. Love is the only gift that made me change in my whole behavour. If I had to choose between the best movie and the choice was limited to 'Citizen Kane' and 'Le Bonheur', the second one I mention would win. The beauty of the filming itself was great and rich in all aspects. Well, dear reader, I'm going to look for a DVD of 'Le Bonheur.

Howard Schumann "It all adds up", says Francois to his mistress Emilie, explaining why he can love her and his wife Therese and his children equally. In her brilliant and provocative 1965 film, Le Bonheur, Agnes Varda (The Gleaners and I, Vagabond, Cleo From 5 to 7), raises the question of whether "open marriage" can work and answers it with a definite "maybe". As the film opens, a carpenter, Francois (Jean-Claude Drouot), and his young (real-life) family are experiencing a Sunday afternoon picnic in the park. Shot in pastels and making use of exquisite color fades, Ms. Varda immerses us in the flowers, trees, and lakes of the French countryside. We are lulled by Mozart's languid Clarinet Quintet, yet soon sense that something is amiss. Communication appears superficial and few feelings are expressed. This mood carries over to the scene in their apartment complex where, in a family gathering that includes aunts and uncles, not much happens in the way of conversation. When Francois is away on business, he meets an attractive telephone operator named Emilie. Soon he declares his love for her and claims that he has enough love within him to include her in his life, "I love you both and if I met you first, you would be my wife". Being honest and open, Francois tells Therese that he has loved another woman for over a month, but says that his love for her and his family remains stronger than ever. The love that Francois experiences is - the film states again and again - a natural occurrence, an addition, not a subtraction. However, Therese cannot separate herself from what has become her identity as wife and mother, leading to tragic consequences. She was, in the words of the lovely song, "Tree of Life", "only known as someone's mother, someone's daughter, or someone's wife." At the end of the film, Mozart's Clarinet Quintet is replaced by the darker Adagio and Fugue in C Minor. Francois replaces one woman with another and continues his life without reflection, guilt, or self-doubt. In Le Bonheur, the characters are painfully pure and do not question their actions. Perhaps Ms.Varda is saying that, for Francois, happiness is seamless, that it will continue regardless, and that, in his world, people are simply viewed as interchangeable parts. In Varda's words, happiness is "a beautiful fruit that tastes of cruelty". Agnès Varda's has said, "In my films, I always wanted to make people see deeply. I don't want to show things, but to give people the desire to see". One of the seminal works of the French New Wave, Le Bonheur was audacious in its day and still leaves us unsettled, 37 years later, yet able to see more deeply.