Early this summer, I ducked into a vacuum-like movie theater and discovered what would become my favorite piece of art this year — even though it was made in 1965. A last-minute decision to watch Agnès Varda’s film Le Bonheur revitalized my creativity with its visual and emotional intensity.
I was familiar with Varda’s work, particularly her documentaries, which are marked by their unyielding empathy — always deeply intimate and, at times, harrowingly so. However, I knew almost nothing about this film, apart from its English translation, Happiness.
It’s the story of a young family in the French countryside: a wife, Therese, who works as a dressmaker; her spontaneous carpenter husband, Francois; and their two healthy children. The conflict arises with Francois, who has everything a contented life requires but still drifts into an affair with a post office worker named Emilie. We see the traditional, deeply loving domesticity he shares with his wife pitted against the passion and modernity he experiences with Emilie. And, as Francois expresses, both women are equal parts of himself and his love.
I became frustrated with Francois’s love-fueled delusions as the film went on, struggling with the difference between his truth and his selfishness. François combats — or maybe ignores — this inner turmoil with a callous idealism. He starts skipping down the street and making grandiose saccharine proclamations, but beneath the optimism, an insidious undercurrent creeps in. As the story unfolds, flashes of color and jump cuts intersperse the lush, pastoral atmosphere, tempered by a gorgeous, though minorly distressing Mozart score. It is remarkably visceral and dynamic in its simplicity.
For fear of spoiling the film for those who haven’t seen it, I won’t discuss it further. However, I can say that it was ominous and humorous and aesthetically stunning.
When I left the theater, I stepped into a bright pink evening with a delicate veil adorning the whole city. Buildings reflected beams of light, colors conveyed a sense of urgency, and I physically felt the fragility of the systems that carry us all: love, family, action, and consequence. This acute consciousness followed me home and I wondered if I should be laughing or crying? There’s a special sentiment in the moments just after experiencing an impactful artistic work — when the mundane and typical become pregnant with meaning and absurdity. Great art somehow makes you look closer and zoom out at the same time, and Le Bonheur did that for me.
Allegra Krieger’s Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine is out now on Double Double Whammy.
