The status of women in society had always been a key theme of Agnes Varda’s work but with L’Une chante, l’autre pas it takes centre stage. This touching portrayal of a close female friendship over a fifteen-year period tells, in microcosm, the story of female liberation in France the 1960s and 70s. The two lead characters appear on the surface quite different; Pauline – later nicknamed Pomme, or Apple in English – rebels against her middle class background to become a singer, while Suzanne, from a working-class rural background, frees herself from dependence on men and parents by finding work in a factory and later a family-planning clinic. What they share in common, apart from great strength of character, is a refusal to submit to the then customary view that a woman’s role in society was to act as a homemaker and mother, while remaining subservient to men. Through their personal journeys we get a flavour of the rapid changes going on in society at that time, especially the growing empowerment of women.

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