Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
The first thing we see is Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) inviting a man into the apartment she lives in with her teenaged son, Silvain (Jan Decorte), and into her bedroom. We do not see what they do, but we can certainly infer what happens; it is not until the very end when we see her with a man in the room. What happens from that first encounter to the final one is simply life unfolding, in all its mundanity and anxiety. The latter seems to occur after the second time she takes a man into her bedroom; does something happen that causes her anxiety to rise? We do not know, but the tasks she approached with such calm before feel more stress-filled.
Chantel Akerman’s drama is 200 minutes long, but it does not feel that way. This is as exquisite an example of controlled pacing and narrative as any filmmaker has ever delivered. The film is not built out of big moments, but rather a gradual unfolding of life. Over three days, we see Jeanne Dielman wake up, prepare food, run errands, have coffee, take care of a friend’s baby, have her gentleman callers over, and eat dinner with her son and go to bed. Each day is the same, and yet, different- a different meal, different chores, different men. It’s clear that Jeanne has a routine, and when something happens to that routine, it shifts her mindset. Is it her second caller that triggers her anxiety, or the fact that she overcooked the potatoes? Or is it the fact that she had to get more potatoes for her mean with Silvain that night? Or is it all three, or none of them? Akerman isn’t interested in explaining things to the audience; she is wanting us to do what her camera is doing, and observe Jeanne and her life.
There is nothing artificial about what we see in “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.” I’ve seen the film likened to neorealism, and there’s certainly a fair comparison to be made to that style, but this is more hyper-realism in the way we’ve seen in works like Tarkovsky’s “Nostalgia” and “The Sacrifice,” where the minutiae of reality is expressed so meticulously that the film stays at a simmer of drama as we await something to happen. Part of the way Akerman creates that is her framing of the film. Cinematographer Babette Mangolte’s camera doesn’t go in for close-ups or really move within the scene; instead, it stays static, usually at medium distance from the action, and watches life unfold for Jeanne. Seyrig’s performance is naturalistic, and feels as lived-in as a film performance ever has. There’s very little dialogue in this film- typically between Jeanne and Silvain- and when conversation happens, it’s always with both people, fully involved, either by speaking or listening to the other person speak. When Silvain or her neighbor who’s baby she looks after speaks, we feel like Jeanne is listening. It’s rewarding to feel like a film is honestly capturing a life unfold rather than just following the exposition points of a script.
“Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” was selected as the Greatest Film of All-Time in Sight & Sound‘s 2022 version of its list, and its easy to see why it made the jump, and connected with the increasingly-diverse body of critics who voted. This is a film that feels inspired by the artists of the neorealism movement and French New Wave, as well as a stepping stone to the character dramas to come from independent filmmakers of all backgrounds and interests. Even when cinematic artificiality seems to come into play in the film’s final scene, it isn’t portrayed as a moment of terror, or manufactured drama, but the closing of this chapter of Jeanne Dielman’s life, and the beginning of a new one. Why did this chapter come to an end in this way? Akerman keeps things open-ended; even as we see Jeanne with this final gentleman caller, the pieces for why it plays out this way do not appear to add up. What we do know is that her routine has changed, irrevocably, on this day, and who knows where it lead her from there. The film is one worth contemplating more than figuring it out, like all great films are.
