One Sings, The Other Doesn’t

Agnès Varda’s enchanting ode to female friendship and liberation is part blissed-out bohemian musical, part revolutionary cri de coeur. Spanning more than a decade, it traces the ups and downs – abortion, heartbreak, marriage, motherhood – of two friends, Pauline (Valérie Mairesse) and Suzanne (Thérèse Liotard). Even as their lives radically diverge, they remain steadfastly devoted to one another while finding ways to empower other women: one as a traveling feminist folk singer, the other as a reproductive rights activist. Set against France’s pro-choice struggle (of which Varda herself was on the frontlines) this tender and intimate epic celebrates the power of women to lift one another up.