Not long ago, grousing about the lack of subtlety that characterizes most movies, I wondered if there were any films, other than those by old favorites, that don't beat one over the head to get their messages (snore) across. Then I happened upon a short piece in the New Yorker about a film by Chantal Akerman, Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles. I was intrigued, and even more so when I read Vincent Canby, who, in 1983, wrote:
LIKE its blunt title, Chantal Akerman's ''Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,'' deals in unadorned facts. It's about the looks and sounds of ordinary things and people, which it records with such precise, unsettling clarity that it has the effect of finding threats in mundane objects and doom in commonplace characters.
(Read Canby's whole review here.)
That sounded like just the thing to reinvigorate my interest in film, and that night, to my surprise and delight, when I sat down with a couple of friends for beer and conversation, one of them produced a DVD containing this very film, saying "You want to borrow this?"
I watched it last night, and wasn't disappointed. It is, beyond a doubt, the slowest movie I've ever seen. Akerman, at least this outing, makes Ozu's and Rohmer's work look, by comparison, packed with action and pregnant with plot, but somehow, watching the remarkable Delphine Seyrig, as Jeanne, peel potatoes, shine her son's shoes, wash dishes, and other mundanities, all in real time or very close to it, is absolutely mesmerizing . . . for all three hours and twenty-one minutes of the film's running time. Jeanne, who is on screen, usually alone, for the entire film, also turns tricks to keep her son in bourgeois comfort, but her commercial trysts elicit no more emotion from her than do peeling, shining, and washing; they are just one more thing that fills up her empty days and which Akerman, unburdened by action or plot, makes magically fascinating and dreadful.
This film came out in 1975, nearly forty years ago. Is anything as demanding and fresh being made now?
I await your answers.
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