''Le Bonheur'' ("Happiness") is a 1965 French drama film directed by

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda (; born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928 – 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film ...

. The film is associated with the

French New Wave French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...

and won two awards at the

15th Berlin International Film Festival The 15th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 25 June to 6 July 1965. The festival started selecting the jury members on its own rather than countries sending designated representatives. The Golden Bear was awarded to the Fren ...

, including the

Jury Grand Prix The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize (also Jury Grand Prix, Grand Prize of the Jury) is an award given by the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival to one of the feature films in competition. It is the runner-up to the Golden Bear prize an ...

Plot

François, a handsome young joiner working for his uncle, lives a comfortable and happy life married to his pretty wife Thérèse, a dressmaker, with whom he has two delightful children, Pierrot and Gisou. The family love outings to the woods outside of town. Although finding abundant happiness in his life and indisputably loving his wife and children, François falls for Émilie, an attractive single woman working in the post office, who has a flat of her own and looks very like Thérèse. Picnicking in the woods one weekend, Thérèse asks François why he seems so particularly happy of late. He explains that all his existing happiness with her and the children is not changed in any way but has been increased by the new happiness he has found with Émilie. Initially, she is upset at the revelation, but then accepts it, saying her world is his happiness. Putting the children to sleep under a tree, Thérèse encourages François to make love to her. He falls asleep afterwards and, waking up, finds Thérèse gone. Searching desperately, he finds her body that anglers have retrieved from the lake. After a spell in the country, where relatives are looking after the children, François returns to work and looks up Émilie. Soon she is living in his house, looking after him and the children. The family are all very happy together and love to go on outings to the woods outside of town. He has once again found abundant happiness in his life, indisputably loving his new wife and children.

Cast

Jean-Claude Drouot Jean Claude Drouot (born 17 December 1938) is a Belgian actor whose career has lasted over a half-century. At the age of twenty-five, he gained widespread fame in the French-speaking world as a result of portraying the title role in the popular ...

as François * Claire Drouot as Thérèse * Olivier Drouot as Pierrot * Sandrine Drouot as Gisou *

Marie-France Boyer Marie-France Boyer (born 22 April 1938 in Marseille) is a French actress, singer and the author of many internationally published non-fiction books on France. She appeared from 1959 until 1976 in more than a dozen feature films and several TV show ...

as Émilie Savignac * Marcelle Faure-Bertin * Manon Lanclos * Sylvia Saurel *

Marc Eyraud Marc Eyraud (1 March 1924 – 15 February 2005) was a French film actor. He appeared in 60 films between 1956 and 1995. Partial filmography * ''Plucking the Daisy'' (1956) - Un photographe (uncredited) * ''The Man in the Raincoat'' (1957) ...

* Christian Riehl *

Paul Vecchiali Paul Vecchiali (28 April 1930 – 18 January 2023) was a French filmmaker and author. Biography Vecchiali was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, France. He spent his childhood in Toulon. His family, suspected of collaboration, preferred to leave this cit ...

as Paul François' wife and children are played by Jean-Claude Drouot's real-life family in their only film appearances.

Reception

In a 2019 tribute to Agnès Varda,

Sheila Heti Sheila Heti (; born 25 December 1976) is a Canadian writer. Early life Sheila Heti was born on 25 December 1976 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her parents are Hungarian Jewish immigrants. Her brother is the comedian David Heti. Her father wanted ...

, AS Hamrah, and Jenny Chamarette included ''Le Bonheur'' among their favourite of Varda's films, with Charmarette claiming it as her favourite and describing it as "like nothing else: a horror movie wrapped up in sunflowers, an excoriating feminist diatribe strummed to the tune of a love ballad. It’s one of the most terrifying films I’ve ever seen." Hamrah called ''Le Bonheur'' "Varda’s most shocking movie," adding "it’s deeply subversive and works like a horror film...How many films are truly shocking the way ''Le Bonheur'' is? I don’t think there are any others." While Heti stated "I don’t have a favourite, but the one I think about most often is probably ''Le Bonheur'' because it had such a devastating ending. It is perhaps the most straightforward in terms of story-telling, yet truly radical – emotionally radical, come the end...It’s impossible to stop thinking about this ending and what it says about love, life, chaos, and fate."

References

External links

* * *
''Le bonheur: Splendor in the Grass''
an essay by

Amy Taubin Amy Taubin (born September 10, 1938) is an American author and film critic. She is a contributing editor for two prominent film magazines, the British ''Sight & Sound'' and the American ''Film Comment''. She has also written regularly for ''The V ...

at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonheur 1965 films 1965 drama films French drama films 1960s French-language films Films directed by Agnès Varda Louis Delluc Prize winners Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winners 1960s French films