Happiness(Le Bonheur)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
France · 1965
1h 19m
Director Agnès Varda
Starring Jean-Claude Drouot, Claire Drouot, Olivier Drouot, Sandrine Drouot
Genre Drama, Romance
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François is a young carpenter married to his beautiful wife, Therese, with whom he has two children. Although perfectly happy in his marriage, one day, he begins an affair with a woman he meets in the post office named Emile. He hopes to share his newfound happiness with his family in this French New Wave drama.
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Varda shines a spotlight on the myopic, selfish, and frequently sexist core of the contemporary notion of "happiness." Varda even mixes in some of the techniques of her predecessors from Italian neo-realism by employing a real family to play her central family. Additionally, Varda's striking and colorful visual language alone in this film are enough to warrant a viewing.
A complex deconstruction of selfish happiness and personal satisfaction that is rendered so beautifully and idyllically that it deliberately deceives you into almost believing that façade of happiness, and ignoring how chilling and devastating the story is until the end.