The weird and provocative tale of infidelity: Varda's Le Bonheur

Agnes Varda's 1965 film, Le Bonheur, is one of the weirdest you'll ever and sure to provoke a lot of discussion; it's not weird in any technical way - although Varda does evince a few innovative camera and editing techniques - not is the narrative hard to follow, but it's hard to figure out where to place your sympathies and antipathies and hard to determine whether than narrative - a very straightforward presentation of a marital 3-some makes any sense on the literal level and, if so, what's the point? What's Varda trying to say or show to us? It's almost impossible to discuss this film w/out spoilers, so I'll start out with the simple and then note where to stop reading if you haven't seen the film. The movie starts out as an almost absurdly idyllic portrayal of family happiness (le bonheur), with a very good-looking family of 4, two delightful toddlers, the mom a dressmaker/seamstress, the dad a carpenter/furniture maker; at the start they're all enjoying a day in the countryside, filmed with lush color and a Mozart soundtrack (though admittedly focused on his chamber music for winds, which can be just a little tense and unsettling). We see that the husband works for and with his beloved uncle, the kids are well cared-for, everything's great - so what's gonna happen to upset this idyll? The husband stops at the post office on some business and the pretty young clerk makes eyes at him, and eventually he returns the gaze, the 2 flirt a little, they go for a walk and have lunch together, she invites him to her new apartment (allegedly on a "job," putting up some shelves), and they begin an affair. Rather than causing him stress and guilt, he seems even more happy and content with life w 2 women. How long he he sustain this charade? (I've heart that there's one scene in which the 2 women appear, in a market of something; I didn't catch that). Spoilers coming: So on another countryside idyll, the wife, remarks that husband seems so happy, and he tells her, somewhat obliquely, that he's having this affair. It's hard to believe he would confess to this w/ such freedom and innocence. But, hey, this is France! And the wife just embraces him and seems to accept this - and we think, what a skunk, how can he do this to her, and why is she so acquiescent? They have sex, fall asleep in each other's arms, and when he wakes - she's gone. He takes the kids and goes to look for her and it turns out that she drowned herself in the nearby stream (there's some ambiguity here; it might be that she fell into the water - though most would not agree w/ that). Everything changes: the score becomes more ominous, the color saturation dims, husband goes into mourning, we don't for a second see him feel or express any remorse - though nobody seems to know why she would take her life (nor do I: Why didn't she start off by giving him hell?). And pretty soon, he goes back to the woman w/ whom he had the affair and she enters their family life and in the final moments we see the couple and the 2 cute kids enjoying another country idyll. So, what's the point here? That he can get away w/ the infidelity because he's so handsome? That this new relationship is obviously doomed, as both partners have shown that they're destructive and selfish? Varda takes no sides in this, but the ending is one of the many puzzles that viewers will have to unravel on their own.