Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1088 Bruxelles (15) |Close-Up Film Review
Dir: Chantal Akerman, France/Belgium 1975, 202 mins.
Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte
Review by Carlie Newman
Voted Greatest film of all time in the Sight & Sound magazine’s poll of 2022, I don’t quite see it as the ‘greatest.’ Nevertheless, it is really worth seeing for its insight into a seemingly ordinary middle-class housewife’s life in a Belgian suburb and the superb artistic achievement of Chantal Ackerman. Ackerman very sadly committed suicide in 2015, some years before the poll came out.
Delphine Seyrig plays Jeanne Dielman) a widow who lives with her teenage son, Sylvain (Jan Decorte) at the address in Brussels, the title of the film. We follow three days in her life. Three days of repeating daily tasks in the kitchen and doing housework in the morning. Then after completing her tasks, she takes off her apron and becomes a prostitute seeing a different client each afternoon. They are all regulars and she performs her tasks diligently, receiving money in her hand at the end of each visit. Her son returns home from school at the end of each day. All in real time with mainly static cameras in different areas the small flat.
But something happens to change the normal tasks that Jeanne undertakes, leading to an unexpected shocking event. This isn’t quite the end, which takes place after the event in the last seven minutes of the film as we continue to see the flashing light which now s a different meaning from the flashing light of the shop opposite which has been the in the background throughout.
Seyrig is superb in her portrayal of the almost perfect housewife and mother. She is perfectly dressed, and her hair is in place. The over furnished flat though small is clean and well-kept. There is very little dialogue in the film but the sound effects and cinematography along with Seyrig’s movement and facial expressions convey everything. This amazing movie is a must see for anyone interested in the development of artistic film.
