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A widowed housewife, Jeanne Dielman leads an incredibly lonely existence. She cares for her teenage son, but their interactions betray an inability to truly connect. She has built a fastidious routine into her life – cooking, cleaning, turning lights on and off, and turning tricks – everything performed with OCD-like precision. The same is true outside the walls of her home, where she shops, banks, and frequents the same cafe – always alone. For reasons unknown to us, speech and emotion are a luxury that she can ill afford to give or receive, even when her son asks about sex and love. Similarly the camera shows us only what it stingily will via static, centered shots – what’s outside of the frame we’re left to discern for ourselves without the aid or distraction of panning, close-ups, dialogue or a film score. We’re allowed no escape because she has none. Unease lurks from the opening scene, when we find the tedium of her existence clinging to us like saran wrap. While I confess a bit of fast forwarding, if you can settle into the rhythm of Jeanne Dielman’s life, with its austere yet repetitive motions, you will start to wonder where it goes and how it will end. What becomes mildly entrancing is the notion that it must end, and when this existence shows signs of wear and tear, the viewer too begins to crack. The only way for Jeanne to withstand such a life is by forcibly shunning her feelings. When some slip of emotion (pleasure?) finally penetrates the barrier she has erected, she must defend herself from the assault on her senses and sense of control. Still when the denouement arrives, it remains most unexpected and provides a relief that is not quite welcome. This is a tough film that will not appeal to most but will sound an alarm in the minds of those to whom it does.

Chantal Akerman doesn’t make ordinary films, she makes extra ordinary wastes of time.

Is this really what makes a good film? An analysis of life’s emptiness performed through a series of scenes consisting of tedious bullshit that people watch films to avoid in the first place? I could have cut out the middle man and just done chores for over 3 hours. I for one prefer art which stimulates, and this film does about as much of that for me as a naked picture of Phillip Seymour Hoffman would. Much like it is possible for a film to be worthless in an excessively commercial sense (ie Transformers), it is just as possible for a film to be worthless in a pretentious art-house sense (ie this movie.) I find Akerman in general to be boring and snobbish. I feel as if whether you are speaking about avanty / minimalist film, art or musical composition, most people have a very hard time distinguishing the good from the bad. This is a perfect example of that. Things like this exist solely for the purpose of people with silly intellectual superiority complexes to discuss over their favorite John Cage vinyl (and sound like douche bags in the process.) Half the time I don’t even think it is the film which intrigues people as much as it is it’s obscurity and inaccessibility. However, I give more credit to the creative minds who can actually find meaning in the film than the director who I personally think has built an entire career off of trying to hard to be a radical. She may have had endless conceptual intentions for this film but in the end it could have just as easily been created by chance by someone who set a camera up in their house. That is the downside of basing your entire film around nothing but “simplicity”. Simplicity is an understatement, because that would employ that SOMETHING goes on during the 3 hours of time I spent pissed off at myself for getting involved with it.

At the same time, I’m 100% aware that different people like different things. There are as many minds as there are heads and I respect that about the world, so for those who truly have an affinity for this film, my rant is in no way directed towards you. I guess I can see how some could get drawn into it’s drastically slow pace, the same way I find myself drawn into the music of Keith Fullerton Whitman (though an entire Keith Fullerton Whitman album only requires a third of the dedicated time that this film does.) Certainly the hypnotic qualities I see in a Herzog film may not be apparent to everyone else. The same can be said about this film I guess, or anything else for that matter. With that being said, I found this to be typical pseudo-intellectual garbage. I’m not a filmmaker, so I’ll be humble and give it two stars, however hopefully Akerman will one day use her “magnificent concept of space and time” to make an actual statement, rather than having baffled critics making it for her.

I’m ecstatic about Criterion’s release of this classic, a film I’ve been dying to see for years. Up there with antyhing Bresson tor Ozu ever made. One could call it a minimalist masterpiece, but with Akerman’s incredible attention to detail, can it really be called minimalist? Nothing on screen is unimportant, and the details actually help to further emphasize its themes.
Some of the finest interior compositions ever shot. Completely eye level, symmetrical, and with its title character inhabiting nearly every frame. As Jeanne’s life and routine begins to unravel, the composition becomes less tidy and more assymetrical.
Delphine Seyrig has a wonderfully cinematic look (she’s been a favorite of mine for some time), and this is the film for which she should be remembered most. She inhabits Jeanne in such a way that few actors have ever managed to inhabit a character.