Thoughts from the committee
In 2022, Sight & Sound released the results of their ten-yearly poll of the greatest films of all time according to critics and directors. Since the poll had started in 1952, Citizen Kane had been the top film, until 2012 when Vertigo had taken over. Now, however, there was a surprising title at number 1: Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Belgian director Chantal Akerman was only 25 when the film was released in 1975, but over time her film has become a feminist landmark; little-seen but highly esteemed.
Over the film’s three hour and twenty minute runtime, we see middle-aged widow Jeanne (Delphine Seyrig) go about her daily activities, cooking and doing domestic tasks for extended periods, over the course of three separate days. Each afternoon, she is visited by a different silent man who pays her for sex. While Jeanne’s sex work would be the focus of a typical film, here it gets as much attention as cleaning the bathtub. The overall effect is a meditation on the ‘playing the part’ of women in the home that, through the extended scenes of “women’s work” that are usually never the focus of cinema, becomes a kind of cinematic scream of protest.
While the film’s runtime might make it a daunting prospect, we thought that a long, slower-paced film like this one would work well for a Saturday 10am session. Grab your coffees and settle in for the rare chance to see Jeanne Dielman on the big screen, and enjoy a few hours of daylight before heading back to the Embassy that evening!
“…on the side of form, it rigorously records her domestic routine in extended time and from a fixed camera position. In a film that, agonisingly, depicts women’s oppression, Akerman transforms cinema, itself so often an instrument of women’s oppression, into a liberating force.” – Laura Mulvey, Sight & Sound