Agnès Varda's Le Bonheur | Happiness (1965)

Le Bonheur was Agnès Varda's third full-length film, and her first in colour. It caused something of a scandal at the time because the sexual morals in it were contrary to the norm, and the film received an 18 certificate.

This is a simple, but disturbing, story in which picnics in the woods are set against a painterly, Impressionistic background. First we have idyllic shots of the young carpenter François Chevalier (Jean-Claude Drouot) with his wife Thérèse (Claire Drouot) and their son and daughter, before François meets Émilie Savignard (Marie-France Boyer), who works for the PTT. Then a secret love affair begins between François and Émilie, which François honestly and alarmingly casually reveals to his wife, seeing nothing wrong with having two relationships at the same time: it's 'happiness'.

Émilie, however, doesn't relate to François's idea of happiness, and after a love-making scene in the woods while the children are asleep, she apparently kills herself. After a necessary period of mourning, François re-joins with Émilie, and the two continue as a new family, with the two children. Today, it is still evident why people found the film so shocking.