One Sings, the Other Doesn't

One Sings, the Other Doesn't (L'une chante, l'autre pas, 1977) is an Agnès Varda musical drama you can watch online on iFILM. Two women, Pomme and Suzanne, cross paths in early-seventies Paris, and that meeting binds them for the next fifteen years.

It starts with one act of help: Pomme scrapes together the money so her friend can end a third pregnancy she cannot carry. Then life pulls them apart. Suzanne raises children alone and pours herself into work with rural women, while Pomme tours the country with a singing feminist troupe. They lose touch, write postcards across the years, argue and hold each other up — each shaping her own idea of freedom. Varda films the daily texture rather than a slogan: childbirth, train platforms, songs in public squares, the small wins people actually fought for back then.

The picture came straight out of the French women's movement that Varda herself took part in, and it now ranks among her essential fiction films. The songs were written for the production and play like an anthem of the decade. Anyone drawn to warm, talky auteur cinema with vivid heroines will fall for it. Stream One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977) online on iFILM.