One Sings, the Other Doesn't

One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977) by Writer/Director Agnes Varda is a Musical/Feminist Drama about the enduring friendship of two very different women whose life paths drift in decidedly different directions with intersecting themes of self-discovery, motherhood, womanhood, women helping women, self-reliance, free will, and an optimism for allowing diversity in female experiences. The story follows the lives of aspiring singer/songwriter Pauline "Apple" (Valier Mairesse) and her close friend (and mother of two) Suzanne (Therese Liotard) in their independent struggles of being non-tradition-minded women in France in the 1960s and 1970s. We first see Suzanne in her daily despair and survival as a young mother who is married to a mostly absent photographer-a man, whose all-consuming passion for "captur[ing] women in a moment of truth" is both a struggle and a "strangle" for living a cooperative and purpose-driven life. After Suzanne's husband hangs himself, Suzanne returns to her parents' farm and starts her life anew. Apple's parents reluctantly give money to their freedom-minded daughter, so she can continue life on her own. Suzanne works diligently to learn skills and get employed, while Apple forms a band, falls in love with Darius (from Iran), and attempts to get her own show produced in what she describes as a "fictional pregnancy." Not long after her funding falls through, Apple moves to Iran with Darius, and they marry. Apple has poetic revelations about being in love and in Iran, while Suzanne starts her own Family Planning Clinic, and grows more and more accustomed to being alone. In the second half of the film, the separate worlds of men and women are presented as a core issue in the decline of relationships, especially when tradition replaces freedom, and loneliness becomes a conditional freedom. Apple becomes pregnant, and the once liberal Darius switches to a more traditional mindset. Resenting this shift, Apple leaves Darius (with their five-month-old son), despite still being in love with him. During this time, Suzanne develops feelings for the married pediatrician, Pierre Aubanel, but morally rejects his advances, describing this pseudo-loss to Apple as a "tiny heartbreak." Back in France, Apple, now pregnant with baby number two, is on tour with her singing group, The Orchids, spreading messages of Women's Lib from town-to-town through her songs. Some of her lyrics include "pregnancy is fleeting," "what can we do to keep our girls from sinking," and "educate them before they become men." Through these words, we see that Apple's journey of activism is now filtered through the exhaustion and hardship of single moms, as she also declares that "women must make their own decisions." Suzanne reconnects with the now divorced Pierre, and they marry, seeing their coupling as unconventionally traditional yet harmonious. In the final narrative, we learn that Apple's and Suzanne's journeys were about securing the "wholeness of women" in light of all they experienced. Their story ends with these longtime friends spending time with their very diverse and extended family, and the message that perhaps they have helped future generations of women to think and act for themselves.