How Sum­mer­time chan­nels the pro-choice spir­it of One Sings, the Oth­er Doesn’t

“They fought to gain the hap­pi­ness of being a woman,” is the con­clu­sion reached at the end of Agnès Varda’s 1977 fem­i­nist musi­cal, One Sings, the Oth­er Doesn’t. This pas­sion­ate sen­ti­ment is echoed in Cather­ine Corsini’s ten­der new romance, Sum­mer­time. Cov­er­ing the peri­od of sec­ond-wave fem­i­nism in Paris over the 1970s the women in both films take to the streets to protest, sing rev­o­lu­tion­ary songs and break the patriarchy.

The furore over a woman’s right to do what she wants with her body and have a law­ful abor­tion is still a major issue that politi­cians stand against to levy sup­port. When asked whether it is still rel­e­vant to talk about the Women’s Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment, Corsi­ni respond­ed: ​“We are liv­ing in a time of ter­ri­ble regres­sion, and it is of vital impor­tance to acknowl­edge it and act on it.” Both films use abor­tion as a jump­ing off point for friend­ships or rela­tion­ships to blossom.

In Sum­mer­time, coun­try girl Del­phine (Izïa Higelin) meets the old­er, polit­i­cal­ly engaged Car­ole (Cécile De France) as she embarks on her new life in Paris. Her eyes are opened to the oppres­sion that women suf­fer via impas­sioned fem­i­nist meet­ings. The two women head to a lec­ture to protest abor­tion laws which leads them to begin a heady romance and in turn forces Del­phine to con­front con­tra­dic­tions between her polit­i­cal views and per­son­al life.

Varda’s musi­cal presents the angry youth lead­ing the old­er women with teenag­er Pauline help­ing out an old friend and moth­er of two Suzanne to get an abor­tion. The years fly by and the two lose con­tact due to a tragedy but recon­nect after 10 years at the Bobigny abor­tion tri­al in 1972. Lawyer Gisèle Hal­i­mi, who defend­ed the women who open­ly admit­ted to hav­ing an abor­tion and had signed the Man­i­festo of the 343 (Var­da includ­ed) appears as her­self. Cru­el injus­tice brings both sets of women togeth­er but their rela­tion­ships are fruitful.

It’s impor­tant to both Var­da and Corsi­ni to explore the par­a­digm of stand­ing up for what you believe in and how hard it can some­times be to live out those par­tic­u­lar val­ues. Del­phine adores the rur­al life and work­ing on a farm, but when she is called back to attend to fam­i­ly busi­ness after her father falls ill, her rela­tion­ship with Car­ole is test­ed. They hide their love from the small-mind­ed vil­lage inhab­i­tants and Delphine’s moth­er, which frus­trates Carole.

Pauline spends the entire­ty of the film search­ing for hap­pi­ness, and even moves to Iran with her lover. At first he seems pro­gres­sive in his views, but the shack­les of soci­ety soon take hold with an insid­i­ous sex­ism enter­ing their rela­tion­ship. Suzanne describes the sad­ness of mov­ing back to her coun­try home as being frozen, due to the fact that she can’t be her­self while liv­ing with her judge­men­tal par­ents. The pair con­vey their time apart through a series of cor­re­spon­dence filled with pain and expla­na­tions of the com­pro­mis­es they’ve had to make.

By the end of each film, the women are left to pon­der their lega­cy and the impact it will have on future gen­er­a­tions. Their youth­ful utopi­an ide­ol­o­gy has brought about pos­i­tive change in soci­ety and a sense of free­dom they did not have before, but there’s no escap­ing the fact that sim­i­lar mis­takes will be made again such is the nature of life.