One Sings, the Other Doesn't

Varda's film about the changing but deep friendship between two women from 1962 to 1976 is also the story of the transformation of their attitudes towards being women in a patriarchal culture. But two distinct elements - a stylistic approach and a sense of nostalgia - make this a very different kind of feminist film, in which reality, though present, never leaves any real scars on an essentially romantic fable. The film's ambience remains that of the '60s dream rather than the harsh reality of the '70s; but as such, it at least provides a considered escapist identification that mainstream cinema has traditionally denied women in its male-dominated fantasies.