Driven by a desire for total transparency, François confesses the affair to Thérèse during a family picnic in the woods. He reassures her that his love for her has only multiplied. Thérèse, seemingly processing the news with quiet resignation, consents to this new arrangement and embraces him. However, while François naps under the trees, Thérèse wanders off and drowns in a nearby lake.
The film is scored to the joyous, elegant classical music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The music plays almost continuously, maintaining a cheerful, high-art atmosphere even as the psychological horror of the plot unfolds. Radical Themes and Feminist Critique le bonheur 1965
Varda, as the sole prominent female voice of the movement (often associated with the Left Bank cinema group), takes a radically different approach. By removing the male guilt entirely, she exposes how effortlessly society absorbs male transgression while completely erasing the female perspective. Thérèse's interior life is kept a mystery to the audience precisely because it is a mystery to François. Her sudden absence and instant replacement serve as a chilling critique of how women are reduced to decorative, functional objects in the male fantasy of a perfect life. The Enduring Legacy of Le Bonheur Driven by a desire for total transparency, François