LE BONHEUR 1965
by
Agnes Varda
The film begins with vivid images of blooming bright yellow sunflowers in the French countryside where a young happy family of four is enjoying a day outing. Joy and health beam through the faces of the man and his beautiful wife. Their sprighly kids walk about like cherubs. There is bliss and harmony and contentment in the post-war European air. You can perceive that they are eating well, drinking heartily, making ample love and sleeping without any care in the world.
The man, a joiner, loves his wife, a dressmaker, with joyous abandon. He does not hold back on his expression of love and in a bid to live his life with integrity chooses not to lie. He falls heads over heels for an attractive young woman working at the local post office who in turn reciprocates his passion. He is forthright with her about his devoted love for his wife and the happiness that his family engenders in him. She accepts the arrangement and does not exhibit any desire to appropriate all of him for herself. “I love you too. I feel happy. Be happy too, don’t worry. I’m free, happy, and you’re not the first. Love me”, she assures him as they devour each other like they are roasted turkeys on Thanksgiving plates.
Savouring holistic love received from two giving women, frolicking around with his two young children, deriving satisfaction in his chosen trade and enjoying the French outdoors, the husband looks more than content, almost brims over with happiness. No true woman would fail to detect his man walking around with light, happy feet. The wife asks her husband for the reason behind his newfound headiness.
“You and I and the kids, we’re like an apple orchard, a square field. Then I notice an apple tree that grows outside the field and blooms with us. More flowers, more apples. It adds up, you know”, he confesses, for he has chosen not to deal in falsehood or diversion. “It’s like if I had ten arms to hug you and you had ten arms for me. We’re all mixed together. But I found myself with extra arms. I’m taking nothing from you, see,” the smell of the trees, the grass and the river have left him intoxicated. He singes her wife with the truth, almost goads her for consent to the ongoing arrangement. She seems to appreciate his honesty and the situation, makes alfresco love with him and then both fall into post-coital reverie.
More often than not in a story an alert partaker is able to detect a coming twist or a shocker, but this film’s cinematography, the physical beauty of and the excellent chemistry between the actors, the relaxed pace of events and general overflow of happiness set us up for a big fall off the precipice of dread. On getting up, the husband and the children keep looking for the wife who is nowhere to be found. She is not able to cope with the shock and has drowned herself in the lake. The shell-shocked, heartbroken husband eventually gets over the loss by leaning upon his paramour. He asks her to move in with him and the kids for the sake of happiness. The happy family regains its form; they continue to enjoy outings in the woods.
At 80 minutes, Le Bonheur (1965) is one of the best edited and cinematographed films that I have seen, and possibly boasts of the most horrific of twists. The horror lies not as much in the wife’s suicide, but in her easy, inevitable, almost predictable replacement. The film must necessarily be shown to those who have had their hearts broken. People contemplating suicide must see how life moves on without them and how easily and naturally do they get replaced. “Imagine a wedding in a mausoleum”, the husband had once asked his wife. “You’re silly”, she’d said. That is how it turns out metaphorically, and the world around him does not even grudge him that in the name of happiness.
Happiness, especially familial and societal, were seen from the masculine lens in the previous century. A family was happy enough if the father was involved; society rejoiced when men could provide and did not have to fight on the fronts. Which is why happiness in French is a masculine noun, and consequently the fitting title is Le Bonheur (and not la, which goes with feminine nouns). Anges Varda has very subtly highlighted the message that while a man wants to have it all, a woman feels full with what she is entitled. She would not share what is hers, while a man would grow more hands to further grab even if his mouth, plate and stomach are full, for his soul does not get satiated.
#agnesvarda #french #newwave #classic #happiness #lebonheur #masterpiece
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