Currently Browsing: Chantal Akerman
Last week, “Sight and Sound” (an elite magazine published by the British Film Institute which has been in the film polling business since 1952) released their heavily awaited poll results for the top 100 “greatest films of all time” with shocking results.
Chantal Akerman’s masterful Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles stole the number one spot!… read more.
Regarding plot, there isn’t much to summarize in Chantal Akerman’s Je Tu Il Elle (1974). In the Belgian director’s second feature-length film, the principal character “Julie” (played by Akerman herself) spends a month in voluntary isolation before hitchhiking with a truck driver (Niels Arestrup) and finally visiting her ex-girlfriend (Claire Wauthion). If the camera dedicates a full five minutes to a scene in which Julie and the driver drink their beers and smoke cigarettes in silence, why do I need to keep my eyes on the screen? What will I miss in the seconds that I turn away?