I think that one of the best things about the past few years was a career resurgence for Agnès Varda. To look everywhere in the film world, there was some tribute paid to The French New Wave pioneer. It could just be that she has remained an eclectic spirit, constantly finding exuberance for life in her documentaries like Faces Places (2017) and Agnes by Varda (2019) that ended her career on a critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated high note. Generations came together to share the value of her work, and I think that one of the most invaluable resources has been The Criterion Collection, whose box set features her entire filmography (shorts and all).
Thanks to their subsidiary The Criterion Channel, I have slowly been working my way through her various works and feel the need to cosign. As someone who considers French New Wave to be one of the best collectives of world cinema, I find Varda’s place in that movement fascinating. For most people, they’ll likely think of the male counterparts first, notably Jean-Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut. There is nothing wrong with them, but there is something fascinating to judge Varda cumulatively to them in the long run.
I know that this has been a controversial sticking point, but I feel like it’s impossible to praise Varda without comparing her to Godard. He was the wild child of the movement, who experimented with narrative techniques so much that they sometimes can be called indecipherable. To quote a recent example, Goodbye to Language (2014), he experimented with form by having a 3D component with juxtaposed images in each eye. I’ll say that to watch the film without this context (or 3D capabilities) is to be isolated. To me, Godard is someone who eventually began to feel frustrating because he wanted to push his crazy ideas into everyone’s face. He’s more about form whereas Varda is about humanity.
Godard was always about deconstructing the medium, and it’s something that grows tedious after 50+ years. He begins to feel cynical and impersonal, where ideas are more prominent than relatable characters. For Varda, I feel like she aged perfectly because her goal was not just to play with form, but to explore aspects of society that were deserving of commentary. In particular, Varda’s exploration of feminism has been very impressive. To watch Diary of a Pregnant Woman or Women Reply is to see a celebration not only of the female form but diversity in personal lives that few filmmakers have really achieved.
Basically, Varda has always struck me as being more caring and optimistic, believing in the value of art to convey her most personal ideas. There are still dozens of shorts and documentaries I haven’t seen where she travels the world, examining whatever interests her. I have a personal soft spot for Uncle Yanco if for no other reason than it has this vivid editing technique and playful narration that is backed by her own affection for this man. It’s just as artful as Godard, but it feels richer because Varda documenting this moment isn’t a selfish act. It’s one to convey the value of human life.
I think that looking at One Sings the Other Doesn’t (1977) in this context makes it stronger. It is among the warmest works from her that I have seen, eventually fading into this peaceful story of self-acceptance. The final act feels anticlimactic to those expecting some profound revelation, especially as it ends with the protagonists looking at a young woman and believing that she will have a better future than them. It is a very feminine way to end the story, ending on this peaceful form of acceptance, this belief that the future for women will be greater than what it had been.
It’s why I understand those who may find the film to be a bit slow and underwhelming, though I think that’s to ignore the effectiveness of Varda as a director. The story takes place across the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on two women as they navigate life around the patriarchy. While I can’t speak for its accuracy within French societal norms, it’s clear that Varda is referencing a period of history in women’s liberation that was vital, creating a turning point where they moved from the typical housewife into an independent woman, who was likely to read “Our Bodies Ourselves” and fight for reproductive rights.
Before the story unwinds, it opens on something a lot more repressive. The two protagonists are Suzanne (Thérèse Liotard) and Pauline (Valérie Mairesse), who are drawn to each other in part out of desperation. Suzanne is a mother with children in need of an abortion. Pauline is a singer trying to make quick cash. With both suffering financial woes, they turn to a photographer who takes erotic pictures of women, finding them in various states of dress. As Suzanne determines how to have the abortion, she thinks of her family and the economic woes it places her in. Meanwhile, Pauline is on the verge of emancipating from her family over radically differing opinions.
As they prepare to take pictures that promise to give them brief financial stability, they look at the walls lined with hundreds of other pictures, finding other women in pleasurable states. They all have been used, selling their bodies for money. For the first act, it feels like they will be imprisoned by this act, their bodies used as a demeaning state of judgment. Was it worth losing some dignity? What Varda does best is capture how plausible this is not only for Suzanne and Pauline but for all women who feel oppressed in some form or another. Their sexuality is a commodity, but there is no real concern for them as humans.
It’s only in the photographer’s suicide (trigger warning: a brief scene involving a hanging) that they are freed from each other. The narrative from here begins to divert, finding Suzanne and Pauline going down their own separate paths. It’s clear that everything is in relation to how these women feel oppressed by the patriarchy. Suzanne feels more trapped, living in a marriage that gives her the gift of family, but maybe lacks other forms of satisfaction. Because of this, her passages are often designed as duller, self-reflecting on her walking through empty spaces as she recalls in letters to Pauline what her life is like. It’s the sense of repression as one grows older, feeling frustrated that they can’t be truer to their feminine identity.
Meanwhile, Pauline is more indicative of the women’s liberation movement. She is the singer in the title, constantly finding ways to express herself. She does so while collecting tips, trying to make a financial living from it. While Suzanne is stuck in codependence, Pauline is off on her own path. It’s a tough one, but she makes the most of it. One of her earliest scenes, set during the late-60s, finds her performing a pro-choice song in front of a clinic. The lyrics are straightforward, preaching how women should be in control of their body. She’s drawn a crowd, including Suzanne and her children, enjoying her comfort in being true to herself.
It may be why Pauline is designed as the more engaging character. It is also where Varda begins to incorporate her own artistic style. A lot of her segments are centered around the idea of performance, her songs all sharing similar themes of women living outside of the patriarchy. In the most memorable scene, she sings from a boat of women who have all had abortions. They’re floating down a river. She sings of everyone watching them from the shores, judging their decisions to end up in such a vulnerable position. It’s melancholic, but Pauline eventually accepts her place in this boat.
What makes the scene work particularly well is how Varda manages to convey the theme of women trying to escape the patriarchy, especially during the late-60s and early-70s. To have them in a boat, proudly singing about their plight allows for a visual sense of isolation. They’re floating through, unable to reach the people onshore. There’s almost a helplessness if they were to jump over, possibly drowning in an attempt to return to the familiar. Though if you were to talk to Suzanne, maybe it’s not worth it.
It’s not entirely clear that Pauline is more conventionally successful. If compared to the American counterpart, she has a free love hippie vibe, finding spiritual enlightenment with a husband who proudly calls himself a feminist. As they tour the world, Varda gets to revel in other cultures, finding Pauline connecting to women in burkas as they attend to their business. In these small ways, Varda is commenting on the idea of womanhood on a global scale and the need to be freed of patriarchal standards. This isn’t done through some violent explosion of activism, but quiet observation, finding the gradual evolution more worthwhile than any major leap.
Even as Pauline’s story becomes this wild adventure, it only helps to make Suzanne’s journey more sympathetic. She has a family to take care of. She is rarely allowed to have the freedoms that Pauline does, and the audience gets a sense of what toll it takes on her. It feels hopeless at times, isolating her from any sense of a normal relationship. There is longing, and it is what makes the third act satisfying when Suzanne finally breaks free. There is a warmth and acceptance. Even if they seem minor, it unveils something that the patriarchy lacks even by accident. It’s the ability to feel like yourself, that your life has meaning.
Being able to sing is symbolic of something greater in Varda’s vision. As Pauline has reflected, her willingness to sing about women’s rights has allowed her to be more comfortable with herself, to expand her compassionate world view. With the backdrop of liberation, it perfectly symbolizes the small ways that a friendship changes as they come to terms at different times with their identity. By the end they’re touring together, playing songs for whoever is willing to listen. The final numbers are a real love-fest, finding them using flower child imagery to depict how at peace they are with themselves.
Even if there’s a sense that Pauline’s music has a one-track mind, there is something freeing about her experimenting with her sound. There’s artistic exercises that make no sense to the audience, and yet the way that Varda shoots her body as angelic, towering over a crowd of dancers below, it manages to create this captivating study of what women could be in society if they allowed themselves these opportunities. What started as a bold decision to break free of societal norms at the start of the film eventually becomes something radical in its peacefulness. The once young women now look to the next generation with affection, imagining a world where they don’t have to sacrifice their bodies for the male gaze. They can live a less tortured life.
That is what Varda was always striving for in her work. Whereas other French New Wave directors got to explore themes like romanticism and politics, Varda’s work felt urgent because she had something more important to say. She had a responsibility to make cinema that expressed women in all of their forms, and because of that, it’s arguably more captivating than anything the others did. Few have captured the female form with as much celebration, watching them feel comfortable in their own skin and talking about these ideas that remain controversial to this day. There is something vital about Varda and why her work will hopefully continue to be discovered for years to come.
I hope that if you have one takeaway from this piece, it’s that Varda is an essential filmmaker. While I definitely think that One Sings the Other Doesn’t is one of the more unsuspecting entries in her filmography, it speaks to the heart of what every film is dealing with. It’s important to recognize that there’s more to cinema than the male gaze, that women have always had something substantial to say. I know that there’s dozens (possibly hundreds) of female directors who have resonated throughout film history for being outspoken, though I don’t know if they ever felt as enthusiastic about life as Varda did. She set a path that is both enriching and entertaining, and I’m glad to be continuing my journey through it.
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