Chantal Akerman films her mother, an old woman of Polish origin who is short lifetime, in her apartment in Brussels. For two hours, we will see them eating, chatting and sharing memories, ...
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A tale of an occidental merchant, Kaspar Almayer, whose dreams of riches for his beloved daughter, Nina, collapse under the weight of his own greed and prejudice.
Director:
Chantal Akerman
Stars:
Stanislas Merhar,
Marc Barbé,
Aurora Marion
Chantal Akerman, the Belgian filmmaker, lives in New York. Filmed images of the City are accompanied by the texts of Chantal Akerman's loving but manipulative mother back home in Brussels. ... See full summary »
Anna, a detached and diffident director, arrives in Germany to show her latest film; she checks into a hotel, invites a stranger to her bed, and abruptly tells him to leave. He asks her to ... See full summary »
An adaptation of Proust's "La Prisoniere" (book five of "Remembrance of Things Past"). Set in Paris, France, it is a serious tale of a tragic and dysfunctional love.
Hotel Monterey is a cheap hotel in New York reserved for the outcasts of American society. Chantal Akerman invites viewers to visit this unusual place as well as the people who live there, from the reception up to the last story.
Jack and Julie live in a bare flat in Paris. At night, Jack drives a taxi while Julie wanders around the city, and in the day they make love. One day Julie meets Joseph, the daytime driver ... See full summary »
Director:
Chantal Akerman
Stars:
Guilaine Londez,
Thomas Langmann,
François Négret
Following over two dozen different people in the almost wordless atmosphere of a dark night in a Brussels town, Akerman examines acception and rejection in the realm of romance.
Chantal Akerman films her mother, an old woman of Polish origin who is short lifetime, in her apartment in Brussels. For two hours, we will see them eating, chatting and sharing memories, sometimes accompanied by Sylvaine, Chantal's sister. Also, and to show how small the world has become, Chantal remains in contact with her mother at other times of the year via Skype from lands as far away from Belgium as Oklahoma or New York.Written by
jsanchez
Chantal Akerman said: "This film is about my mother; My mother, who is no longer with us. About this woman who came to Belgium in 1938, fleeing from Poland, the pogroms and violence. This woman who only see inside her apartment. An apartment in Brussels. A film about a world in motion that my mother does not see". See more »
Leave it to Chantal Akerman to close her career – and then her life – with a film that is by turns boring, heartrending, funny, confounding, symbolic, literal, dreamlike, experimental and concrete.
Akerman's mother Natalie mother was often her muse, either literally, as in the documentary "Letters From Home, where a visual portrait of New York City is given context by the voice- over reading of letters from her mother, or more symbolically as in her 1974 masterpiece "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" – a terribly haunting but difficult 3 hour film about a single mother whose horribly boring on screen life - presented in glacial long shots of activities like cooking potatoes - covers up remarkable and deep secrets and emotions within. And here, right near the start of the film we see Akerman with her mother in a kitchen that is eerily identical to the one in "Jeanne Dielman" sitting and eating potatoes (and discussing their cooking) in the same kind of lengthy, static boring/fascinating shot. It's clear Akerman intends us to make the connection - that kind of mysterious playfulness is also often deep at the heart of her work.
For a film that on some levels is a pretty straightforward and melancholy portrait of her loving, complex relationship with her mother, this is very much a challenging 'art film' on others. Shot over an indeterminate period of time, we see Natalie slowly deteriorating, death drawing ever nearer, but that is not only never discussed, but almost studiously ignored by the film-making. It's a film about death and loss where those subjects are rarely touched on, and where the whole thing starts with a 4 minute shot of a old tree in an unnamed desert being mercilessly blown by a howling wind.
The location of that tree is never revealed, and it's connection to the larger story is left for the viewer to fill in. To me it represented her mother's resilience in a life where she faced much – including the Nazis, but also the kind of tough individualism that marked the lives of both mother and daughter. It also evoked Israel and seemed an ironic counterpoint to her mother's current housebound life. And last, it seemed to be issuing a challenge to watch closely, to not turn off our brains in boredom, but to transcend frustration to notice the kind of details that only come though actively looking over time, as opposed to passively watching (that challenge is another hallmark of many of Akerman's films).
The film also has a deeply tragic meta aspect, We know that Natalie died during the finishing of the film and that Chantal took her life not long after. That knowledge suffuses even the most mundane moments with emotion and fascination. And as much as the film refers Akerman's earlier work in style and feel, there is also much that's new. In her earlier experiments in portraiture – whether of people or places – the lack of 'event' was always offset with the brilliant formal framing of the images. Here the camera placement feels - not saying is - totally random, often cutting off people's heads, or partially blocking the focus of the scene, as if Akerman has let go of trying to comment on life with the image, and is looking instead to capture a sense of being there in the more random way we see things in life. At times it can make the film itself feel annoyingly unfocused. But at others it brings a fresh variation to the very concept of cinema verite.
This is not a film for everyone. Familiarity with, and admiration for Akerman's work certainly helps. But no question it is experimental, slow and sometimes just plain dull. On the other hand, it also touches things about the end of life – one's parent's and one's own – that are startling and sad, and couldn't be gotten to with a more familiar, comfortable and easy to digest approach.
Akerman burst onto the scene as a challenging provocateur. With this film, she leaves the same way.
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Leave it to Chantal Akerman to close her career – and then her life – with a film that is by turns boring, heartrending, funny, confounding, symbolic, literal, dreamlike, experimental and concrete.
Akerman's mother Natalie mother was often her muse, either literally, as in the documentary "Letters From Home, where a visual portrait of New York City is given context by the voice- over reading of letters from her mother, or more symbolically as in her 1974 masterpiece "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" – a terribly haunting but difficult 3 hour film about a single mother whose horribly boring on screen life - presented in glacial long shots of activities like cooking potatoes - covers up remarkable and deep secrets and emotions within. And here, right near the start of the film we see Akerman with her mother in a kitchen that is eerily identical to the one in "Jeanne Dielman" sitting and eating potatoes (and discussing their cooking) in the same kind of lengthy, static boring/fascinating shot. It's clear Akerman intends us to make the connection - that kind of mysterious playfulness is also often deep at the heart of her work.
For a film that on some levels is a pretty straightforward and melancholy portrait of her loving, complex relationship with her mother, this is very much a challenging 'art film' on others. Shot over an indeterminate period of time, we see Natalie slowly deteriorating, death drawing ever nearer, but that is not only never discussed, but almost studiously ignored by the film-making. It's a film about death and loss where those subjects are rarely touched on, and where the whole thing starts with a 4 minute shot of a old tree in an unnamed desert being mercilessly blown by a howling wind.
The location of that tree is never revealed, and it's connection to the larger story is left for the viewer to fill in. To me it represented her mother's resilience in a life where she faced much – including the Nazis, but also the kind of tough individualism that marked the lives of both mother and daughter. It also evoked Israel and seemed an ironic counterpoint to her mother's current housebound life. And last, it seemed to be issuing a challenge to watch closely, to not turn off our brains in boredom, but to transcend frustration to notice the kind of details that only come though actively looking over time, as opposed to passively watching (that challenge is another hallmark of many of Akerman's films).
The film also has a deeply tragic meta aspect, We know that Natalie died during the finishing of the film and that Chantal took her life not long after. That knowledge suffuses even the most mundane moments with emotion and fascination. And as much as the film refers Akerman's earlier work in style and feel, there is also much that's new. In her earlier experiments in portraiture – whether of people or places – the lack of 'event' was always offset with the brilliant formal framing of the images. Here the camera placement feels - not saying is - totally random, often cutting off people's heads, or partially blocking the focus of the scene, as if Akerman has let go of trying to comment on life with the image, and is looking instead to capture a sense of being there in the more random way we see things in life. At times it can make the film itself feel annoyingly unfocused. But at others it brings a fresh variation to the very concept of cinema verite.
This is not a film for everyone. Familiarity with, and admiration for Akerman's work certainly helps. But no question it is experimental, slow and sometimes just plain dull. On the other hand, it also touches things about the end of life – one's parent's and one's own – that are startling and sad, and couldn't be gotten to with a more familiar, comfortable and easy to digest approach.
Akerman burst onto the scene as a challenging provocateur. With this film, she leaves the same way.