I was struck from the second scene—in effect, a car chase, in which a young man (Stanislas Merhar) follows a young woman to what he suspects is a romantic assignation—by Akerman's ingenious assimilation of a rich array of cinematic influences, and, in particular, by her transformation of a work of literature into a cinematic work that refracts, with a distinctive modernism, a particular genre, namely, melodrama.
Richard Brody
July 13, 2010