Happiness - Agnes Varda

It is hard for me to escape the notion, despite reservations expressed thereof by Prof. Shaviro and certain students in class, that this film presents the viewer with a sort of utopia. The nearly complete lack of true human emotion and personal conflict – Francois’ admission to adultery is easily accepted by his wife, and in fact, as she says, may have even made her happier – is absurd and works in creating a strange idealism. Anger, melancholy, and sadness are almost entirely nonexistent in each of the characters, save the brief moment of Therese’s death and the even briefer period of mourning. In fact, as it seems, the only emotion any character displays is happiness, and not even the death of a wife and mother has any adverse effect on that happiness. With no typical drama or contention, and with such pervasive and encompassing happiness, it is hard not to perceive the hyperbole of utopia.

Although, it is difficult too, to make that distinction with complete certainty, for the film in many parts and in a very large way, is quite ambiguous. The ambivalence surrounding Therese’s death, for example, offers an idea contrary to the notion of utopian happiness – if it were indeed suicide, it would imply utter despair on the part of Therese, thus fracturing the established and encompassing utopia and creating, rather, an idea of personal utopia through self-satisfaction and denial in the character of Francois. This, however, seems not to fit, for the children remain happy throughout as well, despite the loss of their mother – through an easy and undeniably absurd process of assimilation, they take their father’s new lover as their new mother as if no transition has taken place at all. We are left at the end of the film with essentially the same shot with which we are presented at the beginning of the film – a happy family holding hands, walking in a natural setting. Though in the end they walk away from the camera, and the mother has been replaced – no happiness seems to be lost, however.

The visual style is also worth noting. The bold colors and natural motifs work in creating a film that is, first of all, visually stimulating and interesting. Thematically, however, it is a bit ambiguous. It seems too easy or too simple to say that the cinematographic beauty is used to further the representation of a utopia in order to make a contrary point, but that interpretation seems to me to be the only one that can be made with respect to the content of the film. However, that implies that I have a firm grasp on the thematic content and message of the film, and I am not confident I do - in fact, I am not sure that Varda intended there to be much thematic attainability here.