Jeanne Dielman, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Seminal work from Chantal Akerman, 1975
This is.... gosh. From the start we know what sign we are under; prositution is shown immeditely. Thus we have this to cloud the film, with frequent passages of no reference. The end does the same thing, something to set the whole film off against, but in reverse. Perhaps we always knew it was going to happen; the first scene had told us.
Akerman's takes, extremely long (though I wouldn't get too excited about this; much of the time it does cut without a huge fuss) seems at first to emphasise space, with Jeanne's head cut off, her leaving the room, the still camera. I would argue that this film does not have space first; it has character first. We do, after all, follow her around the house, pick her up rather than the son. The mis-en-scene of the everyday is subtly enhanced by the prison bars of the tiles and teatowels, just a little hint. The camera has a little, though not much depth, largely cancelled out by the lack of layering in the medium-height view. The editing is elliptical, quite radically so at times; of course, it is 3 days in three hours, which I suppose is quite slow, compared to some films....
Frontality is changed around here; some angles seem designed to promote it, though we also have quite a bit of the back of the head. The repeition of certain shots gives a poerful sense of recurrence; nothing has changed, each day after the other
This film really calls for the viewer. And what was I thinking? One comes to know her gait, and hugely admire her control, her stillness, her patience. Yet she remains thoroughly enigmatic; what is she thinking? Is she thinking? Is she having the kinds of thoughts I am having? The time that is allowed to pass seems to take us at once closer to her, but at the same time, we see more and more that we only have the surface. Sounds take on extra importance; in the near silence, a scratched world or the crumple of fabric contains a kind of cry. Or is this just our projection?
Akermam's primary position is, quite rightly, 'If she's going to damn well do it then we are going to damn well watch her'. Is the labour stupid? Perhaps it is, but we respect her hugely.
The vortex of the house is monstrous, it seems to suck the whole world up. The outside seems strange, unnatural. And what is that remarkable flashing and scrolling blue light. It's almost like a police surveillance unit. Jeanne seems to lose humanity, to drop away, she doesn't care about the baby, she is blank. But can we really talk about humanity, in this overpowering, terrible, yet pathetic life? The abstract idea of 'humanity' seems deeply insignificant.
Akerman has deeply drawn out the content; seemingly not a single formal feature exists except as arises naturally from the content. There is no showiness, no stylisation (to use Sontag's terms). This is, I suppose, when cinema is art; when it is different from other artforms, not adhering to painterly traditions, say, but its form arising from its content, if that distinction really makes any sense.
A remarkable scene develops, first noticed as Jeanne peels potatoes. An expectation, a wish, in the audience (for me at least) has been created for montomy. We don't want her life to change; we want her to keep doing exactly what she has, not change, get angry, make her life livable, becuase it's not what we know. This is a truly remarkable narrative move, making precisely the opposite of the traditonal viewer response occur.
Is she devoted? Is she insane? The ending is at once inevtiable, and a deep shock. We know what we've been seeing, we can't be surprised, we can assent to it all we like, but have we really accepted it? Powerful, to correctly use a usually debased word, 'sublime'.