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One Sings, the Other Doesn't



In the early 1960s in Paris, two young women become friends. Pomme is an aspiring singer. Suzanne is a pregnant country girl unable to support a third child. Pomme lends Suzanne the money for an illegal abortion, but a sudden tragedy soon separates them. Over a decade later, they reunite at a demonstration and pledge to keep in touch via postcard, as each of their lives is irrevocably changed by the women's liberation movement. A buoyant hymn to sisterly solidarity rooted in the hard-won victories of a generation of women, One Sings, the Other Doesn't is one of Agnès Varda's warmest and most politically trenchant films, a feminist musical for the ages.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Agnès Varda and cinematographer Charlie Van Damme, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Women Are Naturally Creative, a 1977 documentary directed by Katja Raganelli, featuring an interview with Varda shot during the making of the film, plus on-set interviews with actors Valérie Mairesse and Thérèse Liotard
• Réponse de femmes, a 1975 short film by Varda, on the question "What is a woman?"
• Plaisir d'amour en Iran, a 1976 short film by Varda, starring Mairesse and Ali Raffi
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Amy Taubin and excerpts from the film's original press book

That's one good short and one bad one in the extras section. I love Varda, how does this rank in her work?

I saw the restoration at BAM last year––it's a very loose work, focusing on the titular women as they move through their lives. It's a little dated, as it shows the hippie era rather fondly and somewhat sentimentally, and it lends itself towards a slight novelistic quality with narration and moving through time a lot. It's very directly engaging with the question of what it means to be a (French) woman during the midcentury. It's never bad, for sure. If you like Varda's chirpy eccentricity, you'll probably like it, but I don't feel it has any of the verve and energy that really makes, for example, the first half of Cleo so stunning.

(The restoration however looks wonderful. Beautiful naturalistic colors.)

I think Hinky summed it up pretty well, this isn't Varda's best by a long shot. In fact for my money, it's pretty near the bottom. It's been awhile since i've seen it but to my recollection neither lead was all that interesting. As an ardent admirer i wouldn't call it bad but it's as close to an outright failure as she's ever come imo. If you're unfamiliar with it, try Vagabond. It's every bit as brilliant as Cleo..in it's observations of doomed femininity.

HinkyDinkyTruesmith wrote: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:44 pm I saw the restoration at BAM last year––it's a very loose work, focusing on the titular women as they move through their lives. It's a little dated, as it shows the hippie era rather fondly and somewhat sentimentally, and it lends itself towards a slight novelistic quality with narration and moving through time a lot. It's very directly engaging with the question of what it means to be a (French) woman during the midcentury. It's never bad, for sure. If you like Varda's chirpy eccentricity, you'll probably like it, but I don't feel it has any of the verve and energy that really makes, for example, the first half of Cleo so stunning.

(The restoration however looks wonderful. Beautiful naturalistic colors.)

While I've seen large chunks of her work, it's only Jacquot de Nantes, Documenteur and Vagabond that I've seen from her fictions (applying that term to her work is silly, but still) but I love all three so I'm down for more Varda.
Her Varda by Agnes which just premiered at Berlin is her swansong according to her