Agnes Varda Retrospective, Part III: Salut les Cubains/Le Bonheur
The UW Cinematheque Agnes Varda retrospective continued tonight, in preparation for next week’s symposium, with a screening of two of Varda’s films from the early-mid 1960s, the short documentary
Salut les Cubains (1963) and Varda’s first color feature film,
Le Bonheur/Happiness (1965).
Salut les Cubains is the first full-fledged documentary screened as part of the retrospective (though both
La Pointe Courte and
Cleo from 5 to 7, like many films of the post-war era, certainly blurs the lines between documentary and fiction, a trend continued in
Le Bonheur), a 30 minute film that chronicles Varda’s 1963 trip to Cuba. Except for the beginning of the film, which resembles a newsreel documenting a Cuban-French cultural exchange in Paris, (group of Cuban musicians march through the Parisian streets attracting throngs of French cameraman and bemused onlookers; Varda’s camera throughout the sequence becomes increasingly interested in the photographers and cameraman covering the event), the film is composed of a collection of still photographs, all taken by Varda. The film is composed of about 1500 still pictures (out of a selection of 4000 photographs), similar Chris Marker’s 1962 film
La Jetee (Marker is thanked in the credits of the film).
Basically a paean to early 60s, post-revolutionary Cuba (Varda herself described the film as “socialism and cha cha cha), the film is arranged thematically (though it moves back and forth between themes), mainly around Cuban culture, mostly Afro-Cuban music (I like Afro-Cuban music, but what is it about Afro-Cuban music that induces such fascination/fixation/obsession among Euro-American intellectuals?), though the film also touches on Cuban artists, writers, and filmmakers; Cuban politics (pro-Socialism and pro-Castro; with some backhanded criticism of the US), and the Cuban people, extolling the virtues of all things Cuban. The film is narrated, alternating between Michel Piccoli and Agnes Varda, with Piccoli adopting a somewhat ironic, detached tone compared to Varda’s more earnest narration. The best parts of the film (and it must be noted, that Varda’s still photography is excellent) are the parts of the film where Varda has edited many still photographs together into a photomontage cut to rhythmic music, emphasizing the seemingly natural joy and verve of the Cuban people. In less polite circles,
Salut les Cubains would be called propaganda, pretty much towing the party line and soft-pedaling any criticism of the regime.
It’s still an interesting movie, and it would be an interesting double bill with
I Am Cuba (1964), a film that I have yet to see, but which sounds thematically similar (it would also be an interesting contrast between directorial methods with Varda’s photomontage and Kalatozov’s fluid camerawork).
Le Bonheur/Happiness was Varda’s first color feature film (she made two short, color documentaries prior to filming
Le Bonheur), and again she worked with cinematographer Jean Rabier (as well as Claude Beausoleil), who had worked previously with Varda on
Cleo from 5 to 7, as well as working with Varda’s husband, Jacques Demy, on his 1964 masterpiece,
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. As can be expected from a collaboration between Varda and Rabier, the color photography of
Le Bonheur is exquisite, easily comparing to the work done by Demy-Rabier on
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (both films share a resplendid usage of blues, yellows, reds, and greens, but unlike Demy’s film, with it’s additional emphasis on pinks, purples, oranges, and pastels, Varda’s film is more “realistic” with more emphasis on browns, greens, and golds; in either case, the usage of color is breathtaking, and both films can rightly be called stylized). Varda marks her stylistic interest in color right away,
Le Bonheur begins with a close-up of a bright yellow sunflower in full blossom, followed by a montage of sunflower close-ups from various angles, while a family, in the background, walks towards the sunflower, out of focus (the usage of the sunflower also denotes the passage of the seasons throughout the film). Another interesting stylistic choice that Varda makes is that instead of fading in and out of black, she fades in and out of various colors. Varda creates a beautiful, idyllic landscape, replete with flowers and impressionistic usage of colors. Then there is the story in which it is set.
Le Bonheur tells the story of Francois (Jean-Claude Drouot), a young carpenter who lives in the suburbs of Paris; Francois is happily married to Therese (Claire Drouot) and has two children, a young baby boy named Pierrot and a girl toddler named Gisou (the children are the real-life children of the actors playing their parents; one of the reasons that the children give such naturalistic performances is that they are essentially playing themselves; one time during the film, the little girl playing Gisou offers someone behind the camera two red peppers while looking right into the lens). Basically, the content Francois inexplicably falls into an affair with a young woman named Emilie. Francois professes to love both of the women in different ways, and even though Emilie is jealous of Therese, she proves amicable to the situation (in one bravura sequence, Varda uses disjunctive editing to illustrate Francois and Emilie rolling together in bed; their body parts are atomized, fractured, abstracted, similar to something out of Resnais’s
Hiroshima Mon Amour; interestingly, Emilie seems to be associated with quick edits and montage, and Therese with longer, fluid takes).
While Francois thinks he has the best of both worlds, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. In two instances, Emilie and Therese cross paths (once outside Emilie’s bright, white apartment; the other at a cafe when everyone is dancing, in one long take, the camera pans back and forth across the courtyard, everytime the view is obscured by a tree, Francois, Therese, and Emilie have switched dance partners, with Francois beginning with his wife, going to some strange woman, than to Emilie, and then back to his wife), and Emilie is almost picked up by one of Francois’s co-workers. One Sunday in the late summer, as Francois and his family lounge in the French countryside (Varda, ever attentive to landscapes, seems really attuned to the lush, rural landscapes, idyllic spots of lush greens and golden browns), Francois confesses his affair to his wife and talks about his happiness (Francois says her can’t abide to lie, even though when asked to choose between Moreau and Bardot for his perfect woman, he picked his wife; also he seems really, really eager to tell his wife, like some kind of child who can not contain himself). I was surprised by her reaction, she seemed so accepting, thinking only of his feelings (like Emelie earlier) and Francois and Therese make love. However, he wakes up to find her gone, and after a quick search, he finds her body being pulled out of a river (the film never makes it clear whether this is a suicide or accident). In the most harrowing sequence of the film, Varda repeats the same action over and over again, the distraught Francois picking up and cradling his wife’s body, with complete silence on the soundtrack (which was dominated by the music of Mozart, Adagio and Fugue in C minor and Clarinet Quintet in A; more lushness, to counterpoint the crueler ironies of the story, like the color, I’m actually inclined to support some reviewers thesis of Brechtian distanciation).
After a summer apart, Francois continues his relationship with Emilie, who quickly adapts to her new role as replacement mother to Francois’s children, depicted economically in a montage (she forsakes her bright white, spacious, spartanly furnished apartment for his blue, cramped, cluttered apartment). The final long shot of the film takes place in autumn, Francois, Emilie and the children have driven again to countryside to enjoy the fall colors. With everyone dressed in autumnal colors, the camera circles around the family as it exits the borrowed truck, Francois distractedly, contentedly looking into the woods, while Emilie deals with the children. The camera watches the new “family” in a reversal of the first shot of the film, as they walk into the distance. You get the impression that Francois is a smug, selfish man and that any woman would do if it would fit into his conception of happiness, damn the feelings of the women around him. A disquieting thought to end a film with. According to Varda it is "a beautiful fruit that tastes of cruelty."
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