FILM / JEANNE DIELMAN
WATCHED:
Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quuai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, (1975)
If you're someone who finds beauty in the ordinary, this film is for you.
I'd first heard of Chantal Akerman last year when MIFF featured a retrospective of her work, sessions sold out immediately, and I made a note to come back to her. I found it on YouTube, free to watch.
Jeanne Dielman is just under three and a half hours long. It follows a widowed woman across three days as she completes her domestic routine. Cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, making beds. Akerman films each task in full, long static shots, nothing cut away, nothing hurried. You watch Jeanne make a veal cutlet from start to finish. You watch her wash every dish.
Akerman made this film at 25. She wanted to show the labour that goes unnoticed, the work women do that nobody watches. Using a recognised actress like Delphine Seyrig in the role was deliberate, it made people pay attention to tasks they would otherwise dismiss. Many people walked out of early screenings. It went on to screen at festivals around the world and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made.
I watched it on a Saturday and spent the rest of the day noticing the sounds and tasks my life is made up of. The washing line, the toothbrush, the sounds of a shared home. I find the mundane beautiful and this film made me feel lucky for that.
If you're someone who finds beauty in the ordinary, this film is for you.
Keen to watch more of her work.