‘Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels’: an empty women’s day

In December 2022, the magazine Sight&Soundwith a monthly circulation and published by the British Film Institute, He has released his own list of the best films in history, the one he releases every decade. Already in 2012, the publication, after consulting 846 experts and critics, came to the conclusion that Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” was the best feature film of all time, thus breaking the six decades in which “Citizen Kane” had led the list. The acclaimed British filmmaker’s reign of film was much shorter, given that in 2022 it was ‘Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels’, by the Belgian Chantal Akerman, who crowned the rankingafter consulting 1639 professionals from all over the world.

It was thus crowned in the best film in history for renowned British publication and the first by a woman. A feature film premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight of the 28th Cannes Film Festival in 1975, where it had already obtained important awards which, over the years, have grown steadily, turning the film into one of the most appreciated works of the Belgian filmmaker, considered one of the fundamental pieces of cinematographic feminism, together with Marguerite Duras. Both, in fact, were characterized by having a non-compliant gaze on the female reality, going to the margins and exploring uncomfortable situations to look at.

Released at the end of February on the Filmin platform, the streaming service took advantage of it this March 8, International Women’s Day, to bring to commercial theaters a feature film that Sight & Sound magazine led in a list that brought not only ‘Vertigo’ and ‘Citizen Kane’, but also ‘The bicycle thief’, emblem of Italian neorealism. In the case of “Jeanne Dielman”, this cult work has been characterized as one of the greatest exponents of Slow Cinema, enjoying a purely minimalist style, focused on observation and in which the narration is reduced to a minimum. , focusing on the three days of an empty woman devoid of any emotion, whose actions will gradually lead to an inhospitable experience.

Akerman accomplished something that, in the years since, has been emulated by other filmmakers: hypnotize and create anticipation with still shots showing the daily chores of a housewife. They are actions whose cinematic presence is insignificant and appear only as a precedent for a larger event. But Akerman chooses to put him at the centre. That yes, to say that ‘Jeanne Dielman’, in its 201 minutes of duration, is alone a succession of fixed shots of mechanical actions would be too reductive.

a hypnotic portrait

The feature film only shows the three days of a middle-aged woman, a widow, a housewife and whose maxim is to take care of her 16-year-old teenage son. Akerman gives him a shady addition, after her morning chores (which includes taking care of a neighbor’s baby who works in the morning), she works as a prostitute. The money she receives for these sexual favors is what keeps the family economy afloat. Indeed, in the contemplative act, one can appreciate a house that depresses more than anything else. Small in size (the son has no space and sleeps on a sofa bed in a living room overloaded with furniture), There is only a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen and an entrance hall, which speaks volumes about the widow’s fragile economic situation.

However, Akerman does not justify Ms. Dielman’s reasons for engaging in prostitution instead of finding another type of economic or employment resource. It’s more, he leaves the free interpretation of that choice to the public, since it hardly explains the past of that woman, leaving only the facts of the three days he immortalises. Through seemingly repetitive actions, the director recounts the living death of a woman who doesn’t know what pleasure is. Something as simple as going to a coffee shop and having a coffee with milk, Dielman does it automatically, gazing into space instead of appreciating the place or while distracted reading the press or a book.

Akerman shows a woman unable to convey any emotion, with herself and for others, involved in a dynamic that has consumed her. Many reasons can be sought for the end of Dielman’s life in this way, the most explicit being that Middle-aged women of the 1970s had been raised to have their destiny sealed: to be good mothers, wives, and homemakers. In fact, Akerman places particular emphasis on this, showing a woman who has a useful relationship with her offspring and how the latter too believes he is the master of the parent’s sexuality (which even raises the question whether Dielman’s decision to give his body in exchange for money is an unconscious and dangerous way of rebellion).

Suspenseful tension

However, the film is much more, showing a mysterious and hypnotic protagonist, whose actions lead her to enter an obsessive spiral, showing how his balance can be so fragile that his whole world falls apart just because he overcooked potatoes for dinner after serving a customer. Here Akerman plays with the card of not fully revealing the character of her protagonist, her past is little known, nor is it revealed what led her to die alive. The kitchen becomes a patriarchal prison, true, but Akerman responds with an uncomfortable narration, which also does not invite empathy with Dielman.

In that hieratic portrait of a woman, which Akerman always portrays from a certain distance, the director flaunts that far from complacent gaze on the female reality and how the weariness of a life sentence can transform an apparently kind housewife into a bomb ready to explode. The division by days allows you to see Mrs. Dielman’s descent into hell, thus allowing the public numerous readings. On the other hand, it is worth noting the mastery that the director has in terms of knowing how to keep the intrigue in banal actions, almost typical of the cinema of Slice of Life.

Sure, the way he executes it produces an atmosphere of suspense, with some touches of terror (like the moments where Dielman babysits). That power of Akerman is reviewed to create a stale climate, in which there is a mixture of bitterness, desperation, resignation and hatred. All this with simple actions such as crossing half of Brussels to find a button, throwing two cups of coffee to prepare more or going back to the room and back to the kitchen for no apparent reason.

One of the greatest exponents of Slow cinema

A series of actions Delphine Seyrig broadcasts in various ways. She reaches that Dielman is a mix of undead and automaton, performing his duties both mechanically and ceremoniously., as if he was preparing his own act of seppuku. Given the inexpression she must maintain at all times, it is one of the most accomplished works by a performer who has worked with other greats such as Alain Resnais, Luis Buñuel, François Truffaut, Fred Zinnemann and the aforementioned Marguerite Duras.

With masterful attention to detail, Akerman also displays exceptional technical care. The assembly, signed by Patricia Canino, works like a Swiss watch; the cinematography, directed by Babette Mangolte, provides cold tones that delve into the feeling of emptiness of its protagonist; even its production design is calculated to the millimeter, the work of Philippe Graff as artistic director. In addition to having a wardrobe with aseptic colors whose flashes of color, Dielman’s scarf or her red hair, are buried in an apartment that looks like a prison.

Akerman belongs to that wave of European filmmakers of the 1970s, at a time when there were controversial female directors like Liliana Cavani or the consolidation of political cinema by Lina Wermüller; not to mention Agnès Varda, whose thrust and recognition was a decade ago, as one of the cornerstones of the Nouvelle vague. The Belgian director marked another type of vision and it is precisely this that makes ‘Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels’ an essential title of the seventh art. Beyond the controversies and lists that constitute the consensus of a specific group of experts, Akerman’s work goes further, inviting an exceptional, immersive and uncomfortable cinematic experience, cinema in its pure state, with that gaze that cannot be does not ask permission or try to engage the mass audience, whose intentions are honest. A masterpiece.

Note: 9

The best: Akerman’s ability to capture with fixed sequences and a setting that reflects his protagonist’s anxieties and terrors.

Worse: It is art house cinema at its best. It does not deceive and it is an honest proposal, but for those who do not like this type of production, it will cause great rejection.