Viewing Varda Part Four: ‘Le Bonheur’

After the gigantic success that was Cleo from 5 to 7, Agnès Varda was a star, and not just in France. So what did she do next? Why, she pushed the envelope again of course. But this time, it wasn’t by playing with cinema’s form. That would’ve be too easy. Instead, Varda set her sights on something far more provocative; with Le Bonheur, Varda sought to subvert the most sacred institution itself. And boy howdy, were feathers ruffled.

Le Bonheur – Summary

Le Bonheur (Happiness) is a narrative feature film written and directed by Agnès Varda, and stars Jean-Claude Drouot as François, a husband and father living happily on the outskirts of Paris. Though completely satisfied with his family (played by his real-life wife, Claire Drouot, and children), François begins an affair with a postal worker (Marie-France Boyer). Over the course of the film, he juggles both of his loves, wanting simply to live with as much happiness as possible.

Warning: due to the nature of the film’s structure and themes, it will be necessary to spoil the twists and turns of Le Bonheur in this article. Since I highly highly highly recommend going into the film without knowing how things go down, skip to the section entitled Final Thoughts or, better yet, stop reading this and go watch it right now on The Criterion Channel (and then come back obviously, as I am in desperate need of attention).

There.

Now that everyone’s seen it (or at least been amply warned), we can continue.

When Your Eyes Orgasm More Often than the Romantic Lead

Let us begin with the immediately obvious: Le Bonheur is freaking gorgeous to look at. To call Le Bonheur a color film would be an understatement. Now, we’ve seen Varda work with color before in her two commercials from 1958 (as well as in the opening of Cleo from 5 to 7). In both commercials the saturation of the capital-C Color was pushed to the max; such is also the case with this film. From frame one, we are bathed in bright green forests and deeply yellow sunflowers and houses with pastel walls. Le Bonheur is so colorful, in fact, it doesn’t even fade to black. Instead, it literally fades to all the colors of the rainbow, a technique I wish we’d see in more films.

But Varda isn’t using all this color just to dazzle us. In Le Bonheur, colors signal exactly where the characters are at emotionally. When the romance gets intense, so do the colors. When that same love is sapped away, the saturation drains out of the frame as well.

The colors of Le Bonheur also serve a structural function. When we open, the busy frames filled with flowers and greenery plunge us into late spring; the beginning of new life and love. Over the summer, there is an upspoken tension underneath the euphoria, so while colors are bright (even the blues feel warm), the lighting is harsher. And when we end with everything resolved, it is as autumnal as things can get. Things have cooled down, and are a bit…darker.

The Horror in the Happiness

Alright people, we can go no further without discussing the sharp left turn. Last chance, y’all.

Le Bonheur ultimately reveals itself to be, despite all its colors and cheeriness, a dark and twisted drama. When François finally tells his wife of his affair during an afternoon in the forest, he tries to convince her that all is well, that he loves her just as much as before, and that things can continue without a crisis. Much to the audience’s surprise, Thérèse seems to take it well, and they make love. However, when François awakes, Thérèse has vanished. He soon finds her: she is dead, drowned in a lake.

This alone would be enough to throw a viewer for a loop, but Varda does not stop with just that melodrama. A mere month or so after he loses his wife, François asks Émilie, his mistress, to live with him and raise his children. And she does.

When the film opens on the image of a happy nuclear family, it is set to Mozart, his Clarinet Quintet in A to be exact. The piece is buoyant and joyous and quaint. During the film’s final moments, we are again presented with an image of a nuclear family, and Mozart again overwhelms the soundtrack, but this time it is with the much bigger and more menacing Adagio and Fugue in C minor. François has retained his family and retained his happiness. But Thérèse is dead, and Émilie has lost her independence. There are smiles on everyone’s faces, except the audience.

The audacity of Varda.

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