Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)'s comments

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greenhorg

Nothing forces you to re-evaluate your time management skills quite like staring at a movie character wash dishes for 30 minutes and then walk into your own kitchen and see a sink full of dirty dishes.

12 years ago

ClassicLady

Some of us live in silent desperation even among family and friends, doing anything we must to make ends meet while maintaining a proper and respectable outward appearance until we just can't do it anymore.

9 years 10 months ago

chryzsh

I just spent an entire saturday evening watching a lady twice my age go about her daily chores and it was amazing.

8 years 3 months ago

smalleywall

I'm going to go hug my mom and say thank you and could she also just make me a hot tea?

11 years 3 months ago

dajmasta94

If you don't like it or think it's boring it just wasn't for you. This is not a film trying to entertain but a film trying to say something by making you feel. If you felt bored, well guess what? That was the point! You are supposed to feel the mundanity of this woman's life. It should have felt suffocating at times. She is trapped by her daily routine, the ending is a byproduct of this. It's pretty simple to understand, it seems so many people are caught up in this idea of what movies should be but it's much more interesting and rewarding to explore what artists think they can be.

5 years 9 months ago

Siskoid

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles, is a cinematic experience more than it is a narrative, and I resent its final incident because it forces a "story" into what was a crushingly honest, and intriguingly ambivalent, portrait. Jeanne is a widowed mother, living with small means with an increasingly distant teenage son. Chantal Akerman's fixed camera watches as Jeanne does her tedious chores in real time, inhabiting perfectly dressed environments that, thanks to the 3h22 runtime, have been burned into my memory. Nothing happens, awkward silences are the order of the day, and it's still somehow riveting. The only thing that's given short shrift is Jeanne getting paid for sex, which is just part of the routine. The way it's all presented, with no judgement, is also how the audience is invited to see it. In between polishing shoes and making dinner, somewhere there's this small lawless act, and the equivalency is worth noting. Prostitution aside, this is the tedium of thousands of homemakers, and putting its quiet drama to celluloid was in itself a feminist act. Lots to unpack in the final moments, and it doesn't destroy everything that went before, but it could be from another film. As such, I would rather skip it and be left with that boldly quiet experience.

5 years 4 months ago

IanWass

Disclaimer: I am in no way qualified to write about this (whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent..)

The problem I have, painting in very broad strokes, with certain commercial American films that take the well-trodden path of criticizing modern middle-to-upper-class suburban life --- territory artists of various mediums have been mining for decades, oftentimes to the point of triteness --- is they feel compelled to bludgeon you over the head to try to make you feel something. It's existential ennui (and/or: malaise/weltschmerz/angst/despair) with a hammer. That's not to say a perfectly placed Philip Glass-esque song or a melodramatic cut-shot to a character visibly, unequivocally unraveling or grand dramatic missteps toward profundity (what up, Sam Mendes?) aren't effective --- but these techniques can obviously cheapen the experience and feel contrived. That’s why a show like Mad Men, in its peak moments, is superior to the aforementioned sub-genre of films --- it requires some patience, sure, but at least it mostly goes light on the bludgeoning.

But that isn't to say the opposite, or however one would classify the subtler stuff that requires a higher attention to detail, (e.g. Ozu) is necessarily more effective. While I admire Ozu greatly from the few films of his I’ve seen –- they simply haven’t connected thus far. I'm cognizant of the overwhelming-politeness-and-adherence-to-ritual-in-the-face-of-despair mentality of Japanese culture (in that era, at least) his films depict. I can see the sadness behind Noriko’s eyes in Late Spring as she must countenance unfavorable outcomes with an unwavering, almost painted-on smile --- and while this faux-bonhomie is somewhat chilling, the overall disingenuousness of the “grin and bear it” charade undermines any chance at a real visceral connection (again, simply for me personally). Maybe this is because we Midwesterners, repression embodied, often wear our emotions on our face -- eyes downcast --- that whole sad Scandinavian stereotype. This is why Bergman is the preeminent authority in (accurate) existential sadness: his scenes always feel true and --- when he intends to --- he doesn’t sacrifice emotional intimacy or authenticity for histrionics (e.g. think Ingrid Thulin’s famous monologue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0L1Y-wL9x4 in Winter Light rather than the crucifix violation in Cries and Whispers).

And so Jeanne Dielman basically had (or rather needed) the effect of the frog boiling in water metaphor, where a false emotional moment, an overreach, represents the jumping-out point --- and not boiling at all is the exact moment when the hypnotic becomes the tedious and the viewer is no longer engrossed. Really that’s Chantel Akerman’s (and Delphine Seyrigs’) great talent in the film: incrementally turning up the degree level with almost scientific precision and care so the viewer doesn’t realize they're being cooked at all; managing a voyeuristic look into the monotonous, soul-crushing autopilot of daily routine in modern society we’re all acutely aware of --- which could very easily drift into banality and languish/underwhelm if treated with too delicate or overly-methodical hands --- or, with brash, less meticulous handling --- over-accentuate/sell the clearly poignant moments and feel inauthentic.

tl;dr This is a classic. Yay feminism. Yay women directors. It's hard being a human. It's really hard being a woman. It's remarkably hard being a mother, particularly a single mother. Go hug your mom. Or caregiver.

9 years 9 months ago

nyx24

why do people wash their hands in the morning?

4 years 4 months ago

HunterAdams

Surprisingly gripping. See it on the big screen!

1 year 1 month ago

D.Fernandes1685

I loved the ciimax of this movie when, at the very end, she sat on a chair for 7 minutes straight. More than once I had to check if I had accidentally pressed pause on my remote while falling asleep. Oh, I almost forgot, it's supposed to be very profound and moving, they tell me.

2 years 11 months ago

Adamov10

does it really need to be this long to make its point?

6 years 8 months ago

AdGuzman

hypnotic voyeurism!
almost a study case of a sole mother-woman

11 years 1 month ago

BogartBaggins

Normally I pause a movie if I have to use the restaurant. This was the first movie I’ve watched where I did not need to do that

2 years 6 months ago

andype

If you say, this movie isn't boring, then I have seen a false movie. I had no connection to this movie, maybe it's my fault however, I don't know, but I know this: I hate if a movie is boring. Though I am not a fan of commercial American films, I love Bunuel, Bergman, Fellini and some other great guys from Italy and France. But this one: not for me.

6 years 8 months ago

deadendjob

Astonishing. I sat in silence for hours afterwards.

12 years 4 months ago