What does this film say about women?

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The view that women are fungible is implicitly presented by François, a sweet smiling man who exchanges wife for mistress after the former's demise. Therefore the view is not that of the director and Thérèse's death is the counterpoint to those who view women in a manner akin to François's.

A bird sings and the mountain's silence deepens.

I just watched it for the first time, and yeah, it's kind of difficult to draw any other conclusion. It would have been a daring movie if the gender roles were reversed, and a woman was simply able to cheat on her husband without guilt, then replace him when the opportunity arises. That would have seemed subversive, particularly at the time, because it's typical movie wisdom that only "bad" women can (or would even want to) juggle different men. It's pretty weird, though, that a woman would write and direct a movie in which the "role" of wife/housewife/mother can simply be passed from one woman to another, with not even the children apparently suffering any consequence from losing their mother and gaining a replacement model. If there's some level or irony or critique going on her, I couldn't perceive it from Varda's direction.

Apparently you're interpreting the film from a simplistic male point of view. I think a generalization of "the women" or "the men" isn't what Varda was striving for.

I'd say Varda made a film coming primarily from the female angle, everything else comes in its wake. The two women in the film are opposites - the one can live with an affair, the other not. That's the main point Varda is trying to make, and that men shouldn't just surmise that they know "women". Because that's what the main character does, he generalizes, thinking his wife can understand. But she's an individual with her own feelings.

I guess François only represents one kind of man that Varda needed to tell her story about different kinds of women and the consequences thereof. There are different kinds of men as well, so I wouldn't jump to all-encompassing conclusions.

Artimidor
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Women are fungible if you are self-centered like the father, and you confuse happiness with selfishness. I don't think Agnes Varda's attitude was one of approval.

listen to the music, look at the settings and season, and their actions.

read this: https://celluloidwickerman.com/2014/06/09/mozart-in-le-bonheur-1965-agnes-varda/

In the beginning its real bonheur, at the end the bonheur is an artificial illusion - for him as well as his Postière Très Tentante.

the film portraits human beings after all, not love machines
and is meant to be seen by human beings too