Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman may cause a viewer
to reflect on the intertwined wonders and banalities of existence: on how the
smallest and most repetitive elements of our life can be recurring sources of
structure and stability and even of contentment and joy, while also imprisoning
and belittling us. As laid out by Akerman in the film’s opening section, Jeanne’s
life is geographically small and economically constrained, but not devoid of activity
or stimulation; one detects that the predictability and patterning is soothing,
even fascinating, but that this depends on maintaining a precise perspective
which is all too easily disrupted or shattered, opening the door to profound existential
crisis. But the film is dotted with sudden outbursts which speak to a desire for
greater intimacy or self-revelation, such as a neighbour erupting into a monologue
about her family’s eating habits, or Jeanne’s mostly wordless son oddly
choosing to end the day by musing out loud on sexuality (sex is, as in many
things, the source of greatest strain - fundamental, economically significant, vital
and mundane and worse). These moments contribute to a slippage containing
elements of both liberation and terror (perhaps I’m not the only one who thinks
of HAL in 2001, given the film’s now transcendent status in the cinematic
rankings). The film’s ending is of course wondrously debatable, its long
closing observance of Jeanne carrying elements of despair and doom and
hopelessness, both personally and as a broader representation of the toll of
patriarchal society, but also of transcendence and possibility (how significant
is it that we watch the terrible climactic event reflected in a mirror?).
Delphine Seyrig is one of the great screen presences, unselfconsciously ordinary
and submerged, but subtly enabling us to tap into the performative resonances
of Jeanne’s life, elevating this smallest of films to stand among the largest.
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