Happiness

An idyllic world, bursting with brilliant colors and lovely strains of Mozart and absolute happiness for everyone. There is no conflict in this movie. But it raises a host of conflicts in the viewer, resulting in one of the most provocative and subversive films I've ever seen. Varda never tips her hand, never lets you know how she feels about what the characters are doing, or how you should feel. There is only an occasional uneasiness in the editing and a growing sense of dread in the observer.

The unbearable lightness of adultery. In Varda's perhaps finest movie the adultery is almost nullified via the idyllic settings, lovely classical music and the ease at which husband, wife and mistress accept the circumstances. More love between more people equals more happiness? It's contentious to say the least. Even more so since Varda refuses to take sides. On top of it all Le Bonheur is brimming with colors and amazing visual juxtapositions (see the breathtaking intimacy montage 45 min in.)

Amazing what editing and tone can do. This same narrative could make for something so much darker or so much more dramatic, but for the most part the film stays true to its title even when you can see dark clouds looming in the background and occasionally the foreground. A beautifully shot and expertly edited piece of beautiful cinema. I'm a bit ambivalent about its perspective, and the ending, but it is a film that is true to itself and easy to appreciate.

An invitation to reflect, where the ambiguous, mysterious character of the radiantly colourful Rorschach images develops an uncanny capacity to delight, disturb, or enrage, depending on one’s point of view and interpretation. At its heart, it concerns a man in possession of a sense of the beauty and joy of the cosmos, and the way that a disruption of that cosmos forces upon him the need to ask himself a question, and to find an answer capable of opening a path to a different but positive future.

Varda bathes the dreamscape in sunshine and lollipops which makes the ending even harder to swallow. The desires of the characters are only glimpsed through the artificiality of the filmic technique. The affair - at least initially - manifests not because of a deficit but because of an abundance of good in the world (according to the protagonist). This soon becomes patriarchy co-opting the free love movement to serve its own aims. The wife is dead and forgotten. We forget her name.

"My wife is like a hardy plant. You (the mistress) are like an animal set free. And I love nature. Voila!"....and just like that, dreamy Drouot makes adultery seem inevitable - romantic even. He's got joy enough for two - and he got game. damn.

Bill Hader's just gotta get some strange.

To say this film is visually audacious is an understatement. This is a visually stunning film, in particular Varda's command of colour and depth. It's beautiful. And then there is the tender and sincere treatment of love, loss and happiness. This film really does embody the feeling of happiness.

Really beautiful film to look at. Not overly complicated on the surface, but man it gets you talking/thinking. Might be Varda's best.

the major narrative decision was surprising, but ultimately deeply unsettling and subversive. at times staggeringly beautiful, and having seen both this and THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, it is not even slighty surprising that the two directors became partners.

Though some of Varda's editing is too frenetic for my taste, this is a strong effort. But for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on I respect it a good deal more than I like it.

Visual style and editing are the strong points of this otherwise quite bland film. The story could have been conveyed with more vigor.

Cheerful and non judgmental in style but for me the movie is so dark because of the protagonist’s careless dismissal of others feelings.

The film never takes its mask off. One long colourful painting titled "happiness" where nothing makes its protagonist question his life and choices for a second. Audition meets The Stepfather as cheerful, unblinking utopia.

As someone who likes an unhealthy amount of suffering in my films (see: Bergman, Haneke, Solondz, Von Trier, etc) I wasn't sure how this was going to work for me, but like others have said, it makes for a highly thought-provoking and rewarding experience, provoking the viewer with an unnoticeable presence. In a word, brilliant.

A poisonously ironic, clever little film. I enjoyed the colours and editing, especially a scene that captures the feeling of having a conversation with someone in a public place where your eyes start drifting to people in the background.

This and Cleo from 5 to 7 evoke the French new wave like how I remember Olmi's Il Posto and I Fidanzati evoking Italian neo realism - both wonderful examples of the era but antitheses of many of its fundamental ideologies. Visualization of scenes both fluid and maintaining a level of self-awareness. Would be a nice companion piece to Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky in exploration of similar ideas with completely different moral perspectives.

The edits are trying a bit too hard for my taste, and the story not hard enough. Mozart deserves big credit for this one.

It works for me mostly because the colors are so damn gorgeous. I love the movie on that merit alone. But it is also charmingly New Wave, with a tragic ending and a sense of false hope that's quite brutal.

The colours and frames are wonderful, the (real-life) family's chemistry shines through, and the idyllic, bucolic happiness permeating the film is heartwarming in its relatable simplicity. Life doesn't only consist of such moments, but a film sure can. Yet the man's adultery puts a damper on things; and then comes the horrific finale, which really sucker punched me in its nonchalance. I feel the male perspective reduces its impact, but then again that was probably the point Varda wanted to make.

audiovisual 99 acting 85 overall feeling 84 avg 89

I wish I was so artful at sarcasm.

Exceptional filmmaking and editing with a wickedly subversive story which turns into a horrifying gut-punch that truly floored me. Fantastic use of colour and music. Genuinely shocked this isn’t more well-known.

To be honest, I think I am familiar enough with this sucker punching strategy that it leaves me unphased, and also when the power of a film rests heavily upon a single moment in the narrative arc, which is not where I tend to invest myself. That is not entirely the case, because Varda has some serious editing chops up her sleeve, and there is always the beautiful things.

the movie seemed ordinary but that last shot with the piece of mozart.... there is something powerful and kinda unnerving here. i'm pretty sure those forest shots with the classical music inspired tarkovsky's zerkalo.

i don't think varda's wrong that leaving the left unchecked means all boundaries and dichotomies collapse until reality is what each individual decides it to be, but without offering a viable alternative it comes off as toxically cynical, even reactionary. that's OK for what is, much like SAFE (josh lewis wrote that it 'trades one prison for another'; this trades cellmates), a provocative horror film in sunny garb, but let's not pretend it's anything more forward-thinking than that.

Not sure really what to make of the Tragedy toward the end. But a quite sweet picture in all other respects. A couple of annoyingly 60s moments, but nothing too overwhelming.

not my kind of happiness

An interesting take on adultery that has many little touches that go over the viewer if they are not familiar with 60's french culture or just not paying 110% attention. It's semi-realistic characters provoke conversation among everyone I've seen this with.

The European arthouse is conditioned toward cynicism, so it's strangely intoxicating to view this film's utterly cheery disposition and bucolic warmth. It's easy to be swept away by these summery pastels, until they are subverted with an ambivalence about just what these lovers are up to. One man's polyamory is another woman's adultery. Or vice versa. Or not. You decide. Here Varda is a provocateur.

impressionism, loosing oneself in love

O uso de cores aqui é soberbo. BlurayRip no MakingOff.

Colors bleeding trough the screen. Parisian suburbs anno 1964, however quite different from that of Godards 2 ou 3 choses... The storyline approaches truth by way of an unconventional script.

Aesthetically quite impressive and innovative, and often quite beautiful albeit at times (intentionally?) verging on an almost kitschy, cloying perkiness (those "cute" kids, ugh). At the same time it's tone is often completely, utterly bizarre in a way that might either be incredibly subversive or just deeply perverse, i'm not even sure.

This is the sunniest, most pastoral brutal satire I have ever had the pleasure of watching. I really love this film.

It's a French movie, so it's about a love triangle. And since it's the New Wave, it's primary-colored, cerebral, humorless and unfeeling, with crappy acting, same as most of them. There's an interesting twist, perhaps a reactionary response to 1960's "free love" liberalism, but it gets lost in Varda's vapid, unconvincing script. She comes into her own much later in her filmography, after shaking off the bad influence of peers.

Varda kendini film boyunca taraf tutmayan anlatıcı olarak konumlandırıyor fakat konu ve karakterler taraf tutmamak için fazlasıyla anti-feminist. Bütün filmin sarkastik bir şekilde anlatıldığını düşünmekten başka çaremiz kalmıyor, bu da filmin anlatı tarzından biraz çalıyor diye düşünüyorum.

This is a fascinating picture. The story and plot are fairly well worn, but what makes it stand out is the tone and artistic choices. Presented utterly cheerfully and colorfully and beautifully, it makes the selfish, narcissistic actions of Francois more unsettling than playing it straight ever could have. I'm not even 100% sure how I feel about the tone, though, or whether I really get what Vargas was getting at. I think I do, but I'm not sure. Fascinating.

The denoument is so cynical in its supposed carefreeness (and repetition of images) that Varda invalidates her whole cutesy, flowery style, which was an abstraction to begin with. Happiness as an art pose won't get you there.

Annoying, ironic, wonderful.

Super impressive on a technical level, and the visuals are immaculate. The script is great, too.