Francois is a young carpenter married with Therese. They have two little children. All goes well, life is beautiful, the sun shines and the birds sing. One day, Francois meets Emilie, they fall in love and become lovers. He still loves his wife and wants to share his new greater happiness with her.
Jean-Luc Godard or Francois Traffaut first comes to mind when it comes to the new wave movement that started to show itself in France towards the end of the 1950s. There is one who should not be bypassed, including all the other directors of the movement, who is Agnés Varda. One of the most important “women” filmmakers not only for the French New Wave but also for the world cinema, Agnés Varda’s Le Bonheur movie belongs to 1965. Even though the film seems to imprison us in its colorful world, with colorful squares opening at the beginning, a happy family painting that appears after sunflower and its fairytale music, we realize that things don’t always go that way.
In Le Bonheur, a male director, especially a father, who has two children and a happy family life, can love his wife and another woman at the same time, and has a different love story for them. With its fiction and its seeming calm, it is possible to literally say an example of New Wave cinema with its striking story. Le Bonheur, who is also the director’s first color film, painfully demonstrates that even though two women can be loved at the same time, it will not be possible to hold both. While being deceived is not something that can be drawn to anyone, sometimes it can be more difficult for women to bear.
Le Bonheur (1965)
Directed by: Agnès Varda
Starring: Jean-Claude Drouot, Marie-France Boyer, Marcelle Faure-Bertin, Manon Lanclos, Sylvia Saurel, Marc Eyraud, Christian Riehl, Paul Vecchiali, Sandrine Drouot, Claire Drouot, Yvonne Dany
Screenplay by: Agnès Varda
Production Design by: Hubert Monloup
Cinematography by: Claude Beausoleil, Jean Rabier
Film Editing by: Janine Verneau
Costume Design by: Claude François
Makeup Department: Serge Groffe
Music by: Jean-Michel Defaye
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Columbia (France)
Release Date: February 10, 1965
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