**SPOILERS**You could tell that Agnes Varda had half of a great idea going into this film, but she never panned it out to its fullest extent. It begins interestingly enough, and progresses so for about half an hour or forty-five minutes. Then it plateaus and nothing very important comes of it. The story has a young married man, Francois, who is in a state of perfect happiness with his beautiful, down-to-earth wife and two beautiful young children (these four are played by an actual married couple, the Drouots, and their children). On the job, Francois begins to run into a postal clerk named Emilie. He's attracted to her and thinks to himself, "Hey, I'm happy, but if I can make myself happier still, is there any harm?" So he starts to date her without losing an iota of interest in his wife. SPOILERS. Eventually, he decides to tell his wife, and he does so guiltlessly. She seems to take it well, and the two make love in an idyllic, pastoral setting. After their lovemaking, Francois falls asleep. When he awakens, she has drowned herself (apparently). Several months later, Francois and Emilie marry and she becomes a mother to the two children, working her hardest at taking the role. As the film ends, we realize that she has incorporated herself into the family perfectly and everything is back to normal. They will live happily ever after, or at least I didn't see any real foreshadowing of future tragedies.
Now, my first instinct is to take the film as being slightly ironic. Wouldn't you think a woman director would want to satirize this man and his rather selfish attitude? Perhaps Varda thinks that a lot of men feel that they should be able to, or at least could successfully love two women at once. There's never a hint that either Francois' wife or Emilie would ever take another lover themselves. They are both absurdly selfless. Emilie totally accepts her position as the paramour. The wife does at first, of course, but it was only a lie so she could punish him. Even more ironic and unfair is that Francois only barely suffers from her death. Even their children seem wonderfully happy next to the indirect and direct causes of their mother's death.
However, I'm fairly sure that the audience isn't supposed to hate Francois. In reality, it seems to me that Varda was trying to challenge social conventions and that she herself is asking why a man can't be perfectly happy loving two women. If this is the case, and it did seem so to me, I feel that Varda is just being a bit facetious. Francois is not a very believable character. He spouts some very ridiculous philosophy about why he should follow his heart and love both women. The audience, in fact, often laughed at these thoughts, because they were, in truth, silly. Francois, at times, seems absolutely naïve. Perhaps this is more support for my first interpretation. But if that were true, the movie still doesn't work. To satirize a kind of person, it's best to have them even remotely believable, which Francois, as I have stated, is not.
Even if this film does fail in its narrative, it is still well worth seeing. It is perhaps best known for being Varda's first film in color. I saw an absolutely beautiful print: this woman knows how to use the format. It's all so vibrant; the colors are not exaggerated, but they're composed in such a way that they stand out almost in three dimensions. And she uses these beautiful fades to green, red, blue, white, and so forth. 7/10.
Now, my first instinct is to take the film as being slightly ironic. Wouldn't you think a woman director would want to satirize this man and his rather selfish attitude? Perhaps Varda thinks that a lot of men feel that they should be able to, or at least could successfully love two women at once. There's never a hint that either Francois' wife or Emilie would ever take another lover themselves. They are both absurdly selfless. Emilie totally accepts her position as the paramour. The wife does at first, of course, but it was only a lie so she could punish him. Even more ironic and unfair is that Francois only barely suffers from her death. Even their children seem wonderfully happy next to the indirect and direct causes of their mother's death.
However, I'm fairly sure that the audience isn't supposed to hate Francois. In reality, it seems to me that Varda was trying to challenge social conventions and that she herself is asking why a man can't be perfectly happy loving two women. If this is the case, and it did seem so to me, I feel that Varda is just being a bit facetious. Francois is not a very believable character. He spouts some very ridiculous philosophy about why he should follow his heart and love both women. The audience, in fact, often laughed at these thoughts, because they were, in truth, silly. Francois, at times, seems absolutely naïve. Perhaps this is more support for my first interpretation. But if that were true, the movie still doesn't work. To satirize a kind of person, it's best to have them even remotely believable, which Francois, as I have stated, is not.
Even if this film does fail in its narrative, it is still well worth seeing. It is perhaps best known for being Varda's first film in color. I saw an absolutely beautiful print: this woman knows how to use the format. It's all so vibrant; the colors are not exaggerated, but they're composed in such a way that they stand out almost in three dimensions. And she uses these beautiful fades to green, red, blue, white, and so forth. 7/10.