One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977) follows two women’s lives amid 1970s France’s feminist movement, reflecting today’s struggles.
I wore ripped jeans, a peasant shirt, and orange love beads the first time I saw L'une chante, l'autre pas (One Sings, The Other Doesn’t). That was many years ago when I was young and in love with my college sweetheart who introduced me to foreign films. We watched the movie at Lincoln Square Cinema on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Unfortunately, this theater no longer exists. After the film we took the D train back to Brooklyn, I can guarantee that we stopped at Dubrow’s Cafeteria for strawberry cheesecake and a serving of egg noodles with mounds of cottage cheese. Both items were equally fattening and fabulous. An actress with beautiful red hair and exquisite shots of Iran were all I remembered about the movie. Seeing the movie again, now, I can say I was accurate on both counts.
One Sings, The Other Doesn’t explore the lives of two French women, Suzanne and Pauline. The film takes place in the mid-1970s, during a time of social unrest in France. The women’s liberation movement was in high gear, and the right to an abortion was a central demand. Although I found parts of this film dated, it was sad and shocking to me that women in America are once again facing the same challenges, due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the film actually has as much relevance today as it had so many years ago.
Ostracized from her family, Suzanne is unmarried and lives with her photographer partner and their two young children. Her lover makes little money photographing women, in his questionable pursuit of seeking “Woman in her naked truth,” with many of the women posing with exposed breasts. Suzanne is in love with him, even though he is irresponsible and fails to support their family. Struggling financially and completely distraught, Suzanne confides to Pauline that she is pregnant–again–when they meet for the first time in years.
Proactive Pauline, who is in her last year of high school, takes control of the situation. As the two friends weigh the options of a back alley abortion or a trip to Switzerland, where under certain circumstances abortion was legal, they decide on the latter. Pauline’s unwavering devotion to Suzanne becomes quickly apparent as she painlessly deceives her parents with a story about needing money for a school trip. They provide her with the cash; but eventually the truth surfaces. An argument ensues and Pauline decides to leave home. Rebellious and free-spirited, she can no longer live under the conservative confines of her father’s rule and moves in with a friend. Pauline is an archetypal symbol of the times, a poster child of the revolution.
When tragedy ensues, Suzanne, who has no practical skills to support herself and her children, has no other option but to return to her parents' farm in the country. The two women part ways physically but never lose touch. Throughout the film, the simple postcard becomes their communication lifeline. “Love without headaches” is how they define their friendship.
One of the most moving sequences is watching Suzanne learn how to type. A kind social worker lends her an old typewriter, but her recalcitrant father is annoyed by the banging of the vintage machine and banishes her from practicing at the kitchen table. Suzanne moves to the barn where we see her practicing with a bale of hale for a table, a huge cow by her side. Animals are so non-judgemental.
[Typical of French cinema, no matter the circumstances the women always look naturally gorgeous without pretension. I always desired to look like a French actress from an independent movie.]
Time passes and Suzanne eventually opens a Family Planning Center in a gym, between the summer and winter pools. She is in the south of France, where sunshine reigns, and the location reflects her greatly improved state of existence. While Suzanne focuses on her financial independence, maintaining the family planning clinic, and on ensuring a stable home for her children, Pauline, who eventually changes her name to Pômme (“Apple”), focuses on a career in music and avant-garde performance. The costumes are ethereal and her drive to create is ripe with passion and determination.
Pômme soon finds herself in a parallel predicament to Suzanne’s and finds it medically necessary to travel outside of France, this time to Amsterdam. Just as Suzanne found a liberating camaraderie with her fellow workers, Pômme found it with the other patients at the clinic. They all sleep in a bunk bed dorm-style hostel together and take a boat trip, touring the canals of the city, the day before their procedures. This powerful experience inspires Pomme to write her first song. It is also where she meets Darius, her new-found Iranian love. Empathetic toward the plight of the women, he is the one who arranges the boat trip and comes along for the ride.
Back in France, Darius works as an economist, while Pômme focuses on her singing career. When funding for along-rehearsed performance falls through, Darius suggests that Pômme returns with him to Iran for an extended vacation.
[As an artist/designer I can certainly relate to this type of disappointment. When a client did not come through after booking me for an exclusive, I threw a 12”-diameter thermometer with a photo of a cow across the room of my 1000 sq. ft. studio. It was a favorite object of mine. I still miss it to this day.]
The scenes of Iran are as gorgeous as I remembered. The landscape and colorful markets, entwined with the couple’s young love, are candy for the eyeballs. However, one instinctively realizes this situation is not destined to last. Iran is not the place for a young singer, interested in the avant-garde and women’s rights, to pursue the dreams she is unwilling to give up. Pregnant, Pômme goes back to France. Pômme is joyful to be physically close to Suzanne again, and Suzanne is excited to be there for Pômme’s first birthing. Darius follows after, to be there when Pômme gives birth. Yet the couple cannot resolve their cultural preferences, and a shocking and unusual family decision is made.
Beautiful Pômme, with the stunning red hair, that I never forgot in many years, makes a number of tough decisions in her life, while always being a mutually devoted friend to Suzanne. An independent soul, through and through, she remains true to her revolutionary spirit and continues her life on the road, sharing motherhood with her all-girl-and-one-man band. OneSings, The Other Doesn’t bear a palpable emotional relevance for modern America. May it inspire us in our own, varied, revolutionary spirits.▮