Le Bonheur (1965)
This is a really unique film that likely hasn’t totally settled yet. On the surface it is just pure happiness - not just the title. We have a young couple that are simply living an idyllic happy life. Both have great jobs, sweet kids and they enjoy relaxing in the French countryside. Lots of beautiful warm colors, flowers and lovely nature in the summer. There isn’t a gram of ill intent or even conflict in this film. The overflowing happiness almost become sickening, which fits the theme the film explores of maybe one can have too much happiness.
The man starts having an affair, not because he has problems with his wife or anything, he just have so much love and happiness to share with more than one women. This does have some consequence but everything is still overly happy all the way to the end.
Despite all that, hidden beneath all this pretty happiness, you still are left with a weird feeling of something being completely wrong. It feels like a horror movie at the end, but it is hard to explain why. I see this as a subtle feminist film that forces me to think and reflect on what why it makes me have these conflicted emotions from this mostly overly joyful movie. Compared to many modern feminist movies, where I sometimes have some issues with how they spell out the message in big capital letters, this balances on a knifes edge of being perhaps too opaque - but that is what I like about it.
It is a film to experience and feel, not explain I think.
Rating: 4.5