A sometime (and brilliant) documentarian, Chantal Äkerman remains a documentarian of sorts even in her fictions, seamlessly blending the two modes, for example, in her first masterpiece, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. In addition, the particularity of the title yields to a generalization on the modern human condition. Äkerman’s minimalism assists this process and the other, collapsing forms of expression at opposite poles into a common essence. Similarly, sound yields to nearly total silence.
In her greatest role, Delphine Seyrig plays Jeanne, a widow who belle-de-jours in her own home to support herself and her son. Here is a soul, it is implied, without better options, and her twin activities, domestic and remunerative, have much the same character. Äkerman, then, has collapsed the difference between these also, wittily/tragically reflecting on the cultural assignment of “woman’s work.” Both are driven by necessity, in one instance, psychic, for the sake of imposed order, and in the other, financial. At the same time, Luis Buñuel’s film (Belle de jour, 1967) reminds us, the motives for becoming a prostitute may be ambiguous and complex. For Jeanne, it is a routine that both extends and takes her out of her domestic routine and connects her with her son by elusively paralleling his school attendance.
This powerful film’s 3⅓ hours cover three days. They are three routine, repetitive days like countless others in Jeanne Dielman’s life. The routine and the repetition are in effect anchoring Jeanne, shielding her from the unchartable, indefinable void of modern existence; their rupture triggers calamity, exposing the lack of structure and cohesiveness for which the routine was compensation and cover-up. At the end, isn’t Jeanne’s apparent explosion really an implosion?
Äkerman’s feminism yields an across-gender social critique.
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Dennis Grunes 