One Sings, The Other Doesn't (1977)

Welcome back for another round of the Criterion Backlog Challenge.

By now, you have a good idea of the breakdown. New month, new theme. As it’s Women's History Month, the films are all movies directed by women.

I'm kicking this one off with a director whose work I have been meaning to get around to prior to this, and feel honestly a bit surprised it took me this long to get to.

That said, as a first taste of the films of acclaimed director Agnes Varda, One Sings, the Other Doesn't made for a very welcome introduction to her prolific career.

As aspects that stand out go, I think if I had to pick one, it's the overall structure and scale of the movie. The movie manages the unique balancing act of feeling both expansive and ambitious but also intimate and character-focused in how far it's willing to reach just in tracing the lives of its two protagonists.

It's also interesting in that the film doesn't start with their first encounter. We are first introduced to Pauline (Valérie Mairesse) through her meeting with Suzanne's lover. We learn from that she had previously met Suzanne (Thérèse Liotard) in passing, but it isn't until the events that start the movie, where Pauline makes arrangements to help Suzanne covertly afford an abortion, that their friendship truly forms.

This becomes the first of several points during which the two women's lives intersect. It's one of the interesting aspects of the movie for me because while the two do have several scenes together (and Mairesse and Liotard do play that camaraderie well), much of the movie is them living their lives separately, communicating in brief correspondence and meeting up when and where they can throughout.

This is one of those touches about the movie that really sticks with me the more I think about it. The nature of the friendship is crucial to the film, but it's not a driving piece of the plot as it would be in a more traditional take on this sort of story. The friendship serves as a means for Suzanne and Pauline (later Pomme) to verbalize their thoughts about their own personal journeys.

Additionally, as someone who hadn't really had any prior
knowledge of France's own politicial history with regards
to abortion, the movie provides a notable snapshot therein.

I keep coming back to the number of ways a movie like this could have gone the more conventional route with its storytelling and structure. They wouldn't make it a bad movie, but if anything, it makes the balancing act Varda accomplishes between the scope of time and the intimate nature of her two leads' personal journeys all the more impressive. Again, this is a first time for me with Varda, but if this level of nuance and characterization is consistent with her overall filmography, I am very much looking forward to seeing more of her work.

Two for two now on this project introducing me to directors who have made strong first impressions. This is part of what I was hoping for in this project, and will be keeping an eye out for an opportunity to see more of Varda's films from here.

Till then