AGNÈS VARDA
One Sings, the Other Doesn’t
We’re back on “it’s been such a long time since I watched this” corner. Oh how I haven’t missed you! For those of you who don’t celebrate, this means that I watched this film, thought about it, and then got busy with the rest of my life before writing my thoughts down. I don’t like when this happens because I lose the depth of my thinking. Sadly the days where I could just contemplate great cinema for hours at a time are now long in my past.
I do find the timing of when I chose to watch this rather fitting. Because I know essentially nothing when I start these, except what’s written on the Criterion blurb, I had no idea that this took place partially in pre-revolution Iran. That turns out to be what most of my thoughts about the film hinged on though, hardly surprising given that I watched this in September of 2024. Even less surprising now that I’m writing about in October.
In the film, one of the two women is married to an Iranian man and, spoiler alert or whatever, ends up sending one of her children to live with him in Iran while she stays in Paris. Besides the bonkers nature of that choice, that presents a fascinating set of questions, given the timing. The film takes place in the mid-seventies, right before the Islamic Republic overthrew the Shah.
You really have to wonder. Or, at least, I did. What happened to Darius and his young son after the revolution. He didn’t really seem like the religious fundamentalist type, but then how would you know before hand. Did he stay in Iran and raise their son there? Did he go back to Paris and find refuge? Does Pomme ever see them again? How does their daughter grow up in France as a half-Iranian women?
Film exists in a moment in time. That’s obvious, but rarely as consequential as it is here. The entire world changed shortly after this story was told. Suddenly the feminist narratives are even more striking. In so many ways this film feels of its time, but also of our time. Naive and prescient. It’s heady stuff, but hardly a surprise coming from Varda, who remains one of my absolute favorites.