A lot of fun.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Three consecutive days are covered in the life of the title character (played by Delphine Seyrig), a middle-aged widow who cares for her teenaged son in the morning and evening, and does various errands in the afternoon. One of those errands seems very surprising for someone whose routine is rather rigid.There are various reasons to think this movie might not work. It's over three hours; the camera is almost always on one character; she is mostly alone and even with others, there is rare conversation. With the exception of a shocking ending, most of the time is spent on the ordinary routines of life. Despite these challenges that would fail with other film-makers, this movie succeeds in a fascinating way mainly due to Seyrig and writer-director Chantal Akerman. By the end, one realizes the movie HAD to be so long to make its point.The ending is so surprising that an initial reaction might be to reject its apparent absurdity. Yet, one cannot help but backtrack to find clues that may have lead to it.Might it be that Jeanne was starting to find an unexpected pleasure in one of her errands and that threw her off her usual sense of being very organized?This film succeeds in causing viewers to think well after the movie, a true sign of greatness. For those of us who are "loners" like Jeanne, we are forced to examine our lives. Living in this earthly plane, we are almost forced to have a routine to survive; but when does the routine become a problem?"Jeanne Dielman" might also be considered ahead of its time in exposing mental illness, signs that are apparent as we often see the despair on Jeanne's face as she stares into space.At the and of the film, I said to a long-time cinephile friend sitting to next to me, "Now that was definitely an ART film." Usually, I'm condescending whenever I say that. In this case, I meant it as a compliment.OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT: Directing by Chantal Akerman

We are torn in life by emotions, desires, grievances, thoughts that surge through us and back to create self. We suffer from the pull of events outside of us; but we also suffer more acutely it seems from a life that has no pull anymore, from being every day in the same room without air.This is the essence of modern film for me, indeed what sets modern man apart, it's the baring of this self who, having sated apparent needs, finds himself no closer to fulfillment, the walls closing in, the air being sucked out from life. Neorealist characters could at least point around them to a life of squalor and ruin as explanation. But Antonioni's characters?So I'm after filmmakers who abet stillness and the wisdom that comes from it, looking for a cinema of awareness (never aesthetics). Because most movies can splash a bit of passion and noise about our predicaments. But how to achieve cessation? How to inhabit the world and our self in a way that we come finally to a measure of realization about process?Here is one of the simplest suggestions to the question, all about creating emptiness. It's my first acquaintance with this filmmaker and I'm bowled over that she made this at 24. She must have been a brilliant mind, a woman worth knowing.A woman simply goes about her daily life. She's a lonely widowed housewife, doing chores, preparing food, washing the dishes. She's also a prostitute, Akerman makes a point to reveal this at the very beginning. Her son comes back in the afternoon, she prepares dinner. She has to wake up again at dawn to make breakfast and see him off.We have no plot, no drama, and only the interminable life in between. Small rituals like trying to get her coffee right because she has nothing else to do. There's only her son in her life. Talk between them is little and the boy's habit to not pay her much mind exists on a razor-sharp edge between neglect and ease. It's heartbreaking to see how she spends her whole day tending to menial chores and he just comes in and sits to eat with barely a word. Mothers will able to relate.But this is the whole thing, how we register these moments. It's sparse, simple, minimal pundits say; better yet, it's like a modernist mantra where by repetition we come to acuity and focus about the fabric of emptiness from which sound comes. In our case, life itself, yours and mine.Is it a horrible ordeal? Can we bear it nonetheless, even if less than ideal and not what was hoped for? Is there an exit?Akerman and the regal-looking Seyrig have conspired between them; Delphine will move gracefully and with complete purpose, the film is a series of tasks carried out without complaint or hesitation, Chantal will film simply the room, allowing us emptiness to receive it. It has some of the most exhilarating atmosphere of any film I've seen.Then a pot of overcooked potatoes or a piece of cutlery that slips from her hand can ring far and wide with the vexation building up inside. When she tries to make the same small-talk she finds inane. When she picks up the baby, unsure if even out of affection anymore.The whole film is inverse Cassavetes, including the snuffing of courage at the end (he never does it). Oh it's a great ending that will brand your insides. But she had already done this for me and to leave her crushed like this, are we now more awakened or less?

There can be no doubt that Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is a masterpiece, but above that it's one of the greatest and most powerful films ever made. Akerman introduces us into Jeanne's boring life-routine that by little details starts crumbling apart, the film is divided into two parts (Jeanne's second and third day), the movie starts with Jeanne already in the middle of her first day, in the first minutes of the film we discover that she is a prostitute, after we see her son, Sylvain, a teenager who spends most of his day in his school, their relationship as mother-and-son is not very good, they almost don't talk or show any kind of feelings for each other, especially Sylvain. After dinner she reads quickly a later from Canada from her sister Fernande, she reads quickly without showing any kind of emotion. After she seam and listen to classic music at the same time, they go out to a place (which is never told or shown)and come back to home, she combs her hair and briefly talks with her son before they go to sleep. Then the second day comes, and almost everything is repeated, so we can get into Jeanne's life, but, it is on the second day that things starts to become difficult, she forgets to buy potatoes and goes quickly to buy them before the night and her son comes, we see her for the first time worried, she cuts the potatoes with no apron and with her hair all unkempt, and then her son comes without she have cut all potatoes, which during the dinner gives them some minutes to talk, a big tension is build up in that scene, Jeanne briefly talks with her son about his school and after, the potatoes are read. Another signal that things are going wrong is when she forgets to the turn the radio on, after, reminded by her son to turn the radio on, she tries to answer the letter from her sister Fernande who now lives in Canada, but for some unknown reasons she can't and tries to seam, and Jeanne and her son go out again, and the same thing that happened in the first day happens again, almost like a ritual which Jeanne can't or won't escape, at least, not in that day. In the third and final day is when things really starts to go wrong, Jeanne forgets to button up one of the buttons of her dress, which serves as a premonition for the day she will have. Her alarm wake up her one hour earlier, during this time, where she has no work to do, she tries to play with the baby that her neighbour left there for sometime after go get it back, but the baby starts to cry louder and louder, so she stops playing with him. Later she goes to the city to try to find the button of one of her son's coats but she can't. Later she receives a present for her sister Fernande, she goes open it in her bedroom with the help of a scissors, one of her clients touch her bell, she left her scissors in her bedroom and go open the door. For the first time in the film the sexual act is shown (both are wearing shirts) and possibly in the first time in Jeanne's life she has an orgasm, she seems traumatized while button up her shirt, then she looks to her scissors and then the tragedy happens. Akerman manages to make small and ordinary little details like forgetting to buy potatoes, drop a spoon, later a mop fall to be as impactful as the death of an important character in another film, the film builds her routine so well that those little details become powerful. This is a must-see for anyone who considers himself a cinephile, it's a movie that requires patience, much patience of the viewer, but as a reward it gives you one of the most powerful experiences you could have with not just a film but with a work of art.

As we see Jeanne, doing her daily chores, there is a hypnotic effect on us. We are transfixed by her grace. We observe her for three days of her life. At the end of the first day, it is clear that she wants to be in control of everything she does. She cannot let go of the authority she has over her own life.The movie was released in 1975 at the Cannes Film Festival. After making a series of short films, it was the first full length feature of Chantal Akerman. As a quintessential piece of feminism, the movie is as moving as it was four decades ago. Delphine Seyrig, playing Jeanne Dielman, gives a performance of a lifetime. Her expressions convey things that many conversations cannot. As she gets lost due to things spiraling out of her control, her face shows a growing sad desperation.The camera never moves. It remains stationary at various positions as we watch Jeanne doing her daily chores. As well as being used as an objective observer, the camera also functions as a door into the mind of Jeanne. The camera position is especially significant when her client comes in the afternoon. We see the door of her room from of a dark corridor to signify her disdain for the sex she has in that room. She keeps the money from the client in a bowl of the table. When her son comes, the tablecloth is spread on the other side and the camera only shows that part of the table as if Jeanne wants to block the source of her income from her son. Observing her perfection, we are sure as viewers that she can earn money from some other way if she wants. But why does she not? Jeane herself answers it. When Jeanne's son tells her, "If I were a woman, I wouldn't be able to sleep with someone I didn't love". She replies, "You don't know.You are not a woman. " She was made to marry her husband by her aunts for money even though he was ugly. So in a way she was made to sleep with someone she did not love for money. She does the same after his death. How is one thing noble and the other immoral?A lot has been said about the camera and Jeanne's activities, but who is she? Though she does work of household like other women do, there is a big difference between them and her. She wants to be the master of her life. But after her spoon drops off, and her potatoes get overcooked, she is unable to get in control of things. The next day she is not able to find buttons for a jacket. The coffee tastes sour.. The place where she sits in the cafe is taken and the waitress she knows has ended her shift. All these things go contrary to her desires. After the unexpected orgasm during another of her daily routine, she ends up doing something very drastic. But the question arises, what does the director want to convey with this? Though, there is no definite answer for this (the beauty of the movie lies in that), for me Jeanne Dielman is the perfect feminist. After her husband's death, she has done everything to be in full control of her destiny. In the end, Jeanne Dielman rebels against the society in which she does not have full control over her actions. It is a metaphor for the lack of control women have on their life because of men.One more subtle thing that is very prominent throughout the movie is the presence of women in almost every shop Jeanne visits. The only places where men are present, are places where you need to have some skill. In contrast women are present at places where mundane things have to be done (like bringing a cup of coffee, finding buttons, wool or groceries) to reflect the lack of importance given to women in the society.The movie has the touch of Yasujirô Ozu, the depth of Andrei Tarkovsky. There are some painful scenes that stay unforgettable (like that old woman trying to get the attention of the attendant to get her work done without screaming out loud like men do). Few movies linger on your mind for days and selected few linger on for years. This definitely belongs to the latter.Check out my blog at: http://djslim7.wordpress.com/