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What begins as a Mediterranean travel film along the Coté d'Azur, commissioned by the French tourist office, develops into an increasingly subversive reflection on the idea of the holiday destination as a "Garden of Eden". From sunbathers, beaches, pine forests, hotels and their gardens, Varda assembles the coastal landscapes into a spectacle in which artificiality and exclusivity merge. As the holiday season comes to an end, the gates close, especially for seasonal tourists: from the "Hotel Eden", the "Eden" restaurant, the "Eden" lido and the private "Eden" villa.
"Paradise was a beach and a pinecone. But Nostalgia for Eden is a garden. A transplanted garden." (Agnes Varda)

He, she and their two beautiful children live in the suburbs, surrounded by idyllic gardens. Embedded in blossoming nature, in sun-drenched interiors and immersed in a dreamlike colour palette, Varda presents the domestical idea of a heteronormative nuclear family. Even 60 years later, the ambivalent aesthetics and provocative ambiguity of Le Bonheur leave a disturbing impression on the happiness of women in this world and the fresh sunflowers from the garden convey the feeling of a proto-feminist time bomb.
"I imagined a summer peach with its perfect colours, and inside, there is a worm. And impressionist paintings, which emanate such melancholy, though they depict scenes of everyday happiness. I listened to Mozart, I thought of death's preponderance." (Agnes Varda)