Jeanne Dielman, Chantal Akerman
All you have in life is time, Chantal Akerman
... "With my films you're aware of every second passing through your body."
My local cinema is doing a Chantal Akerman season at the moment, and I went to see her most famous film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). It was in the spotlight in 2022 when it came top of the Sight and Sound critics' poll, named the greatest film of all time. I first heard of it when Akerman's last film, No Home Movie, was released in 2015, and I went to see it and read about her (and learned about her suicide shortly after, at the age of 65).
The film is firmly in the slow cinema camp, and at 201 minutes long isn't an easy watch. It's widely known as a feminist film due to it's subject matter largely being the unseen work of women, although it's worth nothing wikipedia says: "Akerman was reluctant to be seen as a feminist filmmaker, stating that "I don't think woman's cinema exists".".
I found myself writing some thoughts down during the film, which I'll try and express below:
A film so much about the business of living and surviving - surviving as a woman. Women's work is displayed in full in all it's drudgery, housework and sex work together.
The film is an endless parade of carrying things, moving things, turning lights on and off, opening and shutting doors.
And little pleasures? No, there don't seem to be any. At first, I wondered if Jeanne is happy to live this way, independently without a man (perhaps because of her sister's assertion that that's what Jeanne said to her in her letter) - but that isn't true, she's as beholden to men and housework as if she were married. The shopping is a chore, even the coffee she stops off to get she doesn't drink or enjoy, we don't see her spend time with friends.
It made me think about some of the things we discuss on bearblog a lot, too:
Watching a woman sit for several minutes in real time made me think of the discussion around screentime, the attention economy, learning how to do nothing again.
Watching her day-to-day routine made me thing of trends now that involve going back to go back to shopping locally, cooking your own food, being mindful and present in your actions. It's a reminder of what a privilege that is to be able to chose it, and not be forced to everyday because there's no else to feed you or family and do your chores. I think it's easy for first world feminists to forget the not so distant past (although we have our own, different problems to tackle now).
(There's a sequence where you watch Jeanne overcook the potatoes, get the bag of potatoes, realise there's none left, put her coat of, go to shops, buy a bag of potatoes, and sit there and peel three potatoes in real time.)
How our lives seem irrational, nonsensical, surreal when viewed from the outside with no explanation (as the camera does here) - the audience laughed when an unseen caller at the flat abruptly dropped off a crying baby with only a "bonjour", as it was so sudden - but you're eavesdropping on Jeanne's life, where it's normal for her neighbour to leave the baby with her while she goes to the shops, no explanation needed.
In general, no-one tells you what's happening, you just see it.
When she first disrupts her routine on day two it feels like a horror film, incredible how unsettling something so small can be..
The contrast between her son's idealised notions of love and sex and the reality of how his mother supports them, which he is oblivious to:
And you never wanted to remarry? To someone you love? (…) If I were a woman, I couldn’t make love to someone I didn’t love completely.
But you can't know, you're not a woman.
Even in this slow cinema film where you feel like you spend all day with Jeanne, and indeed sections of her day in real time, there's still mysteries - where do they walk in the evening? Who does she ask for in the coffee shop? - but really, because of the way it's given to us, the whole film is a mystery. We are told nothing about Jeanne's thoughts aside from what we can guess from watching her (and what the camera choses to show us).