Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Country: BEL/FR
Technical: col 202m
Director: Chantal Akerman
Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte
Synopsis:
Over the course of three days, a widow scrupulously attends to the chores in her one-bedroom apartment, dividing her time between looking after her lycéen son and meeting clients for sex. Gradually, the rigorously controlled barriers between the different aspects of her life begin to fray at the edges.
Review:
The fact that it was voted by the 2022 Sight & Sound critics poll as the No.1 film of all time all but rules out any knee-jerk dismissal of this film's uncompromising approach to narrative and pacing. Being required to take in its succession of static medium shots for minutes at a time forces the spectator to adopt the role of interpreter: the protagonist is, so to speak, a prisoner of her existence, so angles are aligned with one or other of the apartment walls and vision is at times denied by the immutability of the frame; objects acquire totemic significance; conversation, or lack of it, reveals preoccupations or taboos. Then there is the soundtrack, given hyperreal status by the mixing board, with its door closures, footsteps and light switches also pointing to interconnected spaces which spill into each other at their peril. A useful starting point for any bold enough to tangle with such a challenging watch might be to point out that the film appears to have provided a focus for feminist concerns in the area of film drama. In other words the traditional 'women's picture' of Max Ophüls, or domestic melodrama of Douglas Sirk, was no longer sufficient for articulating the inner life of womanhood after a time of considerable societal change: Jeanne's very muteness indicated a desperate need for women to be allowed to challenge the patriarchal expectations placed upon them, in Jeanne's case that she should remarry. But this is only a starting point; the film rewards close viewing and re-viewing, preferably in company, before revealing its manifold secrets and Akerman's achievement is that it does so through purely cinematic means. Nor is it lacking a sense of humour.
Country: BEL/FR
Technical: col 202m
Director: Chantal Akerman
Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte
Synopsis:
Over the course of three days, a widow scrupulously attends to the chores in her one-bedroom apartment, dividing her time between looking after her lycéen son and meeting clients for sex. Gradually, the rigorously controlled barriers between the different aspects of her life begin to fray at the edges.
Review:
The fact that it was voted by the 2022 Sight & Sound critics poll as the No.1 film of all time all but rules out any knee-jerk dismissal of this film's uncompromising approach to narrative and pacing. Being required to take in its succession of static medium shots for minutes at a time forces the spectator to adopt the role of interpreter: the protagonist is, so to speak, a prisoner of her existence, so angles are aligned with one or other of the apartment walls and vision is at times denied by the immutability of the frame; objects acquire totemic significance; conversation, or lack of it, reveals preoccupations or taboos. Then there is the soundtrack, given hyperreal status by the mixing board, with its door closures, footsteps and light switches also pointing to interconnected spaces which spill into each other at their peril. A useful starting point for any bold enough to tangle with such a challenging watch might be to point out that the film appears to have provided a focus for feminist concerns in the area of film drama. In other words the traditional 'women's picture' of Max Ophüls, or domestic melodrama of Douglas Sirk, was no longer sufficient for articulating the inner life of womanhood after a time of considerable societal change: Jeanne's very muteness indicated a desperate need for women to be allowed to challenge the patriarchal expectations placed upon them, in Jeanne's case that she should remarry. But this is only a starting point; the film rewards close viewing and re-viewing, preferably in company, before revealing its manifold secrets and Akerman's achievement is that it does so through purely cinematic means. Nor is it lacking a sense of humour.
Country: BEL/FR
Technical: col 202m
Director: Chantal Akerman
Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte
Synopsis:
Over the course of three days, a widow scrupulously attends to the chores in her one-bedroom apartment, dividing her time between looking after her lycéen son and meeting clients for sex. Gradually, the rigorously controlled barriers between the different aspects of her life begin to fray at the edges.
Review:
The fact that it was voted by the 2022 Sight & Sound critics poll as the No.1 film of all time all but rules out any knee-jerk dismissal of this film's uncompromising approach to narrative and pacing. Being required to take in its succession of static medium shots for minutes at a time forces the spectator to adopt the role of interpreter: the protagonist is, so to speak, a prisoner of her existence, so angles are aligned with one or other of the apartment walls and vision is at times denied by the immutability of the frame; objects acquire totemic significance; conversation, or lack of it, reveals preoccupations or taboos. Then there is the soundtrack, given hyperreal status by the mixing board, with its door closures, footsteps and light switches also pointing to interconnected spaces which spill into each other at their peril. A useful starting point for any bold enough to tangle with such a challenging watch might be to point out that the film appears to have provided a focus for feminist concerns in the area of film drama. In other words the traditional 'women's picture' of Max Ophüls, or domestic melodrama of Douglas Sirk, was no longer sufficient for articulating the inner life of womanhood after a time of considerable societal change: Jeanne's very muteness indicated a desperate need for women to be allowed to challenge the patriarchal expectations placed upon them, in Jeanne's case that she should remarry. But this is only a starting point; the film rewards close viewing and re-viewing, preferably in company, before revealing its manifold secrets and Akerman's achievement is that it does so through purely cinematic means. Nor is it lacking a sense of humour.