web hit counter Almost Nothing Happens in the ‘Greatest Movie Ever Made’ – TopLineDaily.Com | Source of Your Latest News
Entertainment Movies

Almost Nothing Happens in the ‘Greatest Movie Ever Made’

Almost Nothing Happens in the ‘Greatest Movie Ever Made’

Sight and Sound, a film magazine published by the British Film Institute, is best known for publishing a ranked list of the greatest films of all time every ten years, with the first edition of the list being published in 1952. This list is compiled based on the votes of hundreds of film critics, archivists, historians, and people in other film-related fields from around the world. Although Bicycle Thieves (1948) topped the first edition of the list, the next five editions saw Citizen Kane (1941) rise to the top before being supplanted by Vertigo (1958) in 2012.

However, in 2022, following a massive increase in the number and diversity of voters, the list was topped by a female-directed film for the first time: late Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman‘s 200-minute domestic drama Jeanne Dielmam, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). This infamously slow film focuses on three days in the everyday life of the eponymous widowed single mother (Delphine Seyrig), as she does household chores, runs errands, and does sex work each day while her young adult son is at school.

In contrast to the expressionistic visuals, melodramatic performances, and complex narratives of both Citizen Kane and Vertigo, Jeanne Dielman is known for its minimalist style, glacial pacing, mundane narrative, and confined setting in the titular apartment. As banal as its premise and stylistic presentation may seem at first glance, Jeanne Dielman is actually a powerful and intelligent exploration of domesticity and womanhood that richly rewards the patience of its viewers.

‘Jeanne Dielman’ Is Brilliantly Mundane

Olympic Films

Unlike most movies, Jeanne Dielman seems to be designed to be as unentertaining as possible. This approach is reflected not just in the narrative itself, but also in the formal techniques with which Akerman films it. Every shot in the film is static — there is no camera movement whatsoever during its 200-minute runtime. The editing is extraordinarily sparse, as well, only cutting when Jeanne moves to a different room, as if she (rather than Akerman) controls the pace of the film. As a result, the film is full of unusually long takes that often last for several minutes, even if Jeanne is only sitting in a chair and not doing anything.

The psychological effect of this glacially paced, documentary-like style of filmmaking is twofold. Firstly, it obviously bores us to an almost agonizing degree. But this boredom is itself a crucial aspect of the film’s feminist politics. It forces us to empathize not just with Jeanne, but with all women whose circumstances have forced them into a life of lonely and repetitive domesticity. The film seems to be asking its audience — particularly any viewers who believe that a woman’s rightful place is in the household doing chores — how they would like to be stuck doing the same chores and running the same errands every single day, all while being in deep financial straits.

On the other hand, the slowness and repetition of Jeanne’s routine in the first half establishes that she has a very clear and consistent routine for her everyday tasks. However, after finishing with her sexual client on the second day, attentive viewers will notice that Jeanne starts making several subtle mistakes, such as forgetting to turn the lights off when she leaves a room, dropping utensils, and even missing a button while putting on a shirt. While these mistakes might seem innocuous, they stand out because the film has devoted its first 100 minutes to showing us that Jeanne simply does not make these kinds of mistakes under normal circumstances. The fact that she is slipping up is a strong indicator that something went wrong while she was with her client.

The Shocking Ending of ‘Jeanne Dielman’

Actress Delphine Seyrig as Jeane Dielmann in the drama film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Olympic Films

Jeanne Dielman is a bit of a paradoxical film. On the one hand, we spend more than three hours with Jeanne and get a very detailed look at her daily life. On the other hand, the film ends with her doing something very shocking — something that the film hasn’t given the audience any overt reason to expect up to this point. This twist ending confronts the audience with a disturbing reality: even after 200 minutes with her, we never had any idea what she was thinking or feeling.

The only foreshadowing that the film, which contains very little dialogue, provides for Jeanne’s actions at the end is her tangibly agitated and distressed demeanor following her second client’s visit, leading to the minor but numerous slip-ups in her routine. But even this, on its own, doesn’t convey the full scale of the emotional and mental breakdown that drives Jeanne to do what she does in the penultimate scene.

In other words, despite its seemingly repetitive narrative structure and relaxed pace, Jeanne Dielman builds suspense during its runtime. But it’s not the kind of suspense one would find in, say, a Hitchcock film. Indeed, the suspense of Jeanne Dielman is based less on fear of danger and more on boredom. Because the film is so slow and repetitive, our growing impatience and frustration puts us in a similar mental and emotional state as Jeanne — we can’t help but share her feelings of resentment and stagnancy. Like her, we increasingly desire some means of catharsis, however temporary or ill-gotten.

Therefore, even though we’re shocked by her actions in the penultimate scene, we still sympathize with her to a large degree. And therein lies the film’s most important message: what happens at the end is tragic, but it’s also an inevitable byproduct of an inequitable social system that limits women’s bodily, financial, and social autonomy. It forces women to bottle up unhealthy emotions that, sooner or later, have to be released somehow.

It’s undeniably a major step forward for women in film that Jeanne Dielmann, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles was named the greatest film of all time by one of the industry’s most prestigious journals. However, the legacy of Akerman, her film, and its groundbreaking ranking can only be maintained if people keep watching and discussing it. Fortunately, it is available for streaming on Max and the Criterion Channel.


Source link