Delphine Seyrig in “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.” credit: cranesareflying1.blogspot.com
Three women, unbeknownst to each other, were interested in making the same kind of film, a film that expressed a singularly feminine/feminist viewpoint, deliberately avoiding, and aspiring past, the kind of visual, structural and thematic choices to which filmmaking men were disposed. Chantal Ackerman was a Belgian filmmaker who had come to NYC, originally, to see Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967) – it was rarely screened in Europe. Her 1975 film, Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Belgium, 1975), was shot by Babette Mangolte, a French cinematographer who split time between NYC and France (she met Akerman in NYC). Performing the role of the title character was our Delphine, who met Akerman at a smaller French film festival, and occupies every frame of this rigorous but revelatory film. Akerman’s first feature-length film, Je Tu Il Elle (Belgium, 1974), is 86 minutes long. Her second, Jeanne Dielman, is 3 hours and 21 minutes. There’s little if any disagreement that it’s one of the landmark works of art in the 20th century, yet it didn’t get a domestic U.S. screening until 1983, in New York.
The film is a chronicle of three days in the life of a widowed single mother (Delphine), living with her high-school-aged son Sylvain (Jan Decorte). There aren’t any details concerning the death of her husband, other than it happened six years ago. She and Sylvain seem to have a modest but sufficient source of income, although one of the first episodes of our first day, shortly after Sylvain has left for school, is her answering the door for a man who will pay her for providing sex. (This is likely what they’re living on.) She takes his coat and scarf, hangs them up, returns them when they’re done, and receives her payment when he leaves. She puts the money in a ceramic pot on the dining room table, opens the bedroom window for fresh air, and returns to the kitchen, where she drains potatoes for dinner. Back in the bedroom, she closes the bedroom window, smooths out the bedspread (which she had protected with a towel) and takes a long and thorough bath, cleaning the tub vigorously when she’s done. Afterwards, she sets the dining room table and puts the final touches on dinner just before Sylvain arrives home from school.
Although most of these things take up around 15 minutes of screen time, she’s extraordinarily methodical and meticulous. She tends to wear a housecoat in the kitchen, strikes the matches to light the range burners with oddly elegant grace, washes her hands often, and, when moving between rooms, turns lights on as she enters, off as she leaves. There’s a tablecloth and placemats set for dinner, and the cloth napkins have rings. She and Sylvain eat in relative silence, but tonight there’s a letter from Aunt Fernande in Canada. She and her husband recently moved there, and the bigger distances are daunting: “The women here all drive, but I’m afraid I’ll never learn.” After eating, Sylvain works on memorizing poetry by Baudelaire with Mom, then does other homework on his own. She turns on the evening radio (FürElise) and knits a sweater for him. There’s a store sign flashing outside through their window, incessantly, and, before retiring, they take a walk outside around the block. On returning, they move some furniture, unfold the living room hide-a-bed for Sylvain and put on their bedclothes. Sylvain asks her about meeting her husband, his father, George. She wanted security and a child, and suggests that love, looks and sex are secondary considerations. “If I were a woman,” he states, “I wouldn’t be able to sleep with someone I didn’t love,”. “You don’t know,” she says, “you’re not a woman.”
Jan Decorte and Delphine Seyrig in “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.” credit: cranesareflying1.blogspot.com
“On the first day of shooting, Chantal told Delphine, “I want you to walk into the kitchen, go to the sink, turn on the water, wash your hands for five seconds, turn off the water, dry your hands on the towel for three seconds, put the towel down and walk out of the room.” Delphine asked her, “What am I thinking while I do this?” Chantal shrugged, “Think anything you want.” “Am I thinking about my son?” “Sure, why not, think about your son.”
Seyrig was not unfamiliar with the avant-garde; she’d made “Pull My Daisy” with Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and she now gently explained to the little girl from Brussels, “Listen, you can’t make movies that way. You can’t just tell actors to do things without motivation.” Chantal, 24 years old, a lower middle-class nobody whose father owned a clothing store, blithely told the star of Last Year at Marienbad, Muriel and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, “Just do it. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.” A couple of days later, when Seyrig watched the dailies, she said, “You’re right. It works.”
Delphine Seyrig in “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.” credit: cranesareflying1.blogspot.com
Many other chores are dealt with on the second day, in the same ordered and scheduled way. She wakes up and puts on her robe. Without waking him, she grabs Sylvain’s dirty clothes and shoes from the living room, leaves laundered clothes for his day, and shines his shoes in the kitchen while making coffee: she boils water, puts grounds in a filter over the pot, pours the water, dumps the filter when it’s finished, pours a cup for him and puts the rest in a thermos. After feeding Sylvain a bit of toast, she dresses for the day, gives him some allowance and sees him to the door off to school. Putting on her housecoat, she does all of last night’s dishes, strips and remakes her bed (with the towel for later) and runs her own errands: making a deposit at their tiny bank, taking Sylvain’s other pair of shoes to the shoe repairman (a telling bit of thrift), and stopping at two or three local shops for groceries. Once home, she sorts the groceries, logs the receipts in a notebook and starts to prepare dinner, but there’s a knock at the door. No worries, though; her neighbor is dropping off her baby to be watched while she’s out. The baby is apparently content while we watch her prepare breaded veal in real time.
A note on the visual scheme; anytime she’s doing anything in the house, the camera is straight-on to the room she’s in, stationary; the camera frame matches the shape of the room, parallel to the back wall. Known as an “aquarium shot,” it’s a surprisingly austere viewpoint, but ideal for observing tasks and activities one might think are too commonplace to document on film; surely you can edit away a lot of this in a montage sequence. But the results of this slow accumulation of details, and falling into her rhythms with them over time, are genuinely worth waiting for.
Mom returns to pick up her baby, and chats away about her indecision at the meat counter and ending up with too much veal – how she’s not that hungry anymore since she quit smoking, but the kids need meat with their meals. Too bad they can’t just do school lunches…
Mom leaves: Jeanne has a small lunch, touches up her make-up and goes out to buy more knitting wool for the sweater. (Although at no point in the film is her name ever used, spoken or even written on anything.) Then she stops at a small café for a coffee. Returning home, she prepares potatoes in the same manner as the previous day and leaves them to boil on the stove while answering the door for today’s male client.
Returning to the kitchen after their transaction, she stops, goes back to the bathroom and turns off the light she’s forgotten (from her bath and tub-cleaning). In the kitchen, she lifts the lid on the potatoes and realizes they’re overcooked. She doesn’t quite know what to do about it, and eventually drains them and tosses them in the trash. But there aren’t any more, so it’s a trip to the store. Returning, she must peel the potatoes again, and isn’t at the door to meet Sylvain when he gets home. Soup is on time, but they wait at the table, patiently, for the rest to finish cooking. After dinner, Sylvain points out she forgot to turn on the radio. They agree not to take their walk, since dinner was late, but then they go anyway. Turning in for the night, Sylvain confesses that everything he knows about sex was learned from his friend Jan (clearly not his parents, six years ago or at present), and he was repulsed by the idea that his parents did that. He faked nightmares, calling for her, to lure her away from that terrible thing Dad would do to her.
Delphine Seyrig in “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.” credit: cranesareflying1.blogspot.com
“It was only on the first day of the shoot that we realized the length of certain shots. At that time, ninety minutes was the norm for a film to be commercial, but Chantal did not want to excerpt things or do ellipses on the gesture. This was fundamental to the aesthetic of feminism. You don’t do what men do. It’s not an action picture. It’s a picture that is about giving nobility to something that has never been represented: somebody cooking, somebody waiting. The consequences of the utopia that we were working from implied that the film was going to be the way it was. And that’s absolutely what was verbalized to Delphine. And she was totally for it. She was very sophisticated in terms of aesthetics — she was in Pull My Daisy; she lived in New York in the experimental film and art scene. And by the early Seventies she worked only with women directors. She was very much a feminist.”
Delphine Seyrig in “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.” credit: cranesareflying1.blogspot.com
Akerman’s formalism keeps us at a remove, but Delphine Seyrig’s diligence and detail commands our attention. We see a woman who’s done everything that’s expected of her, has become everything she’s wanted to be – a good wife, a good mother and a good person. Her whole persona is learned behavior in a world that doesn’t give value to what she’s demonstrably learned. When little things start going wrong, they seem exponentially disruptive, even as she maintains composure. Jeanne’s inevitable disintegration doesn’t announce itself with shrieking and crying and lashing out. When it happens, it’s just as ordered and efficient and deliberate as most of the other things in her life. In some ways she’s relieved that another seemingly necessary task has been completed. The Freudians among us will pinpoint the particular moment of Jeanne’s catharsis, but Akerman’s step-by-step, unhurried narrative makes its own compelling case for long-term traumatic stress, and Seyrig is actress enough to make either or both perfectly plausible.
This is one of my favorite movies, and certainly one of my favorite acting performances. The narrative works at a very atypical speed and style, and not everyone will have patience for it. But those who stick with it, falling into Jeanne’s rhythms, will discover a very unique cinematic storytelling experience.
Delphine Seyrig in “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.” credit: thecine-files.com
One of the most entertaining films I’ve seen in years, S.S. Rajamouli’s RRR (Rise, Roar, Revolt) (India, 2022) has made a minor dent in the U.S. film market, but has a very good chance of cracking the conventional American cinematic mainstream over time. But don’t take my word for it – the film has been streaming on Netflix since March, and is available to watch even as we speak. But beware – watching this three-hour thrill ride once will only compel you to go see it again in a real theater, and, much to my chagrin, your only chance to do that, up until now, was in March. The U.S. box office so far for the film is $11,375,288, placing it at #4,742 among theatrical releases. That’s not only sad, but gross negligence on the part of its U.S. distributors.
From the 1750s, administratively and militarily, India was managed by the East India Company. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the maintenance and management of the territory was transferred to and colonized by the British Empire (the British Raj). (This also included what we now know as Pakistan and Myanmar.) India’s active participation in World War I as part of the British effort, as well as their contributions toward founding the League of Nations and their competing in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, led Indian leaders to start realistically considering Indian independence and self-rule. But growing insurgencies in Bengal province, Bombay and the Punjab resulted in the Rowlatt Bills in 1919, essentially restoring war-powers to British legal and military authorities. This (arguably) resulted in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in the city of Amritsar, where British forces opened fire on thousands of protesting unarmed civilians. The brigadier-general in charge was dismissed, but treated as a hero back in the U.K., and Mahatma Gandhi arrived at the forefront of Indian activism.
The film takes place in the 1920s. The British territorial Governor for Delhi, Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson), is doing a bit of hunting in the Adivasian forest while his wife, Catherine (Alison Doody), is being regaled by the native inhabitants of the woods, the Gond tribe. A young girl, Malli (Twinkle Sharma), is singing to Catherine while putting henna designs on her hands. Enchanted, Catherine points out Malli to the Governor upon his return, and they, astonishingly, take Malli away from her family and home with them, a heartrending lesson in British cruelty, arrogance and racism.
Meanwhile, Alluri Sitarama Raju (“Ram”) (Ram Charan Teja) is an Indian member of the clearly racist and sadistic British police, yet he still aspires to be an exemplary, almost superhuman, officer. After a thrilling display of his physical skills and devotion to duty during an uprising (the first of many jawdropping action sequences throughout the film), he is, of course, later passed over for recognition and promotion, displaced by nondescript white Britishers.
Ram Charan Teja in “RRR.” credit: filmibeat.com
When a special advisor to the region of the Adivasian forest suggests to the Governor’s office that they may want to return the child they’ve kidnapped, he’s all but laughed out of the room. But, with steady and civil demeanor, he informs them of a “shepherd” who will be coming for their lost lamb, and who will stop at nothing, or for no one, until he’s accomplished his task. Still skeptical, the assistant to the Governor informs the police, even though they haven’t a clue as to whom he may be. With nothing to go on, the police think it’s hopeless, but the Governor’s wife Catherine raises the stakes for the man who brings in the shepherd by promising a high-ranking promotion. “Do you want him dead, or alive?” asks Alluri Sitarama Raju.
The shepherd who comes to Delhi with three other tribals is Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr., known to Indian film fans as Jr.NTR), Malli’s brother, but they’re having real trouble digging up their own clues about where to find Malli or how to get her away. Bheem is going by the name of Akhtar, and has a gig as a motorcycle mechanic for cover. Ram, in search of “Akhtar,” frequents underground meetings of anti-colonial insurgents until he meets Lacchu (Rahul Ramakrishna), one of Akhtar’s accomplices. He befriends Lacchu, but his cover is inadvertently blown, and he loses Lacchu after a chase, which will drive him and Akhtar further underground.
But only a minute or two later, with things seeming dark for each of them, Ram stands on a bridge while Akhtar is under it, on the riverfront. A mishap occurs with a train running under the bridge – there’s an explosion, and a train car derails with more behind – with a small boy catching fish for Akhtar imperiled on the water below. Somehow, Ram and Akhtar make eye contact, and spring into action(!), resulting in our next gasp-inducing sequence of action choreography and stuntwork.
So the ensuing narrative takes shape – Ram has no idea that Akhtar is the shepherd, but a profound friendship develops between the two men. Will Akhtar free Malli from the evil Governor before Ram discovers who he is? How does Ram countenance how the British treat him? And how does this narrative expand into the greater insurgency against British Raj rule? Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem were indeed famous insurgent revolutionaries in early 20th century India. Each has a statue in tribute in their respective states, but they never met. Their partnership is a narrative conceit, and a superbly constructed one, by writer/director S.S. Rajamouli and co-writer Vijayendra Prasad, Rajamouli’s filmmaker father.
Ram Charan Teja in “RRR.” credit: filmibeat.com
I won’t reveal anything else about the film, as the subsequent events of the film deserve to be discovered rather than related. Just know that I’ve only summarized the first 45 minutes of this terrific three-hour film.
The closest comparison to Rajamouli’s oeuvre may be James Cameron, another writer/director with thrilling, crowd-pleasing narrative conceits, prodigious technical skills and resources, and solid rapport with his actors. Rajamouli’s budgets are no doubt a fraction of Cameron’s, but he shares his taste and smarts in employing CGI seamlessly yet unobtrusively. Rajamouli’s earlier two-part opus, Baahubali (2015 and 2017), like Titanic or the first Avatar, set new box office records upon their release, and RRR is no exception.
So, by all means, see this movie however you can. Netflix is the easiest option right now, and scour those local-theater Indian-film listings you generally ignore. If any other theatrical screenings appear in the Chicago area, I’ll do my best to alert you. Top Gun: Maverick is impressive competition in the action category, but I can confidently say that this is, and will be, the best film I’ve seen all year.
Ram Charan Teja and N.T. Rama Rao Jr. in “RRR.” credit: filmibeat.com
One note: The film was shot in the Telegu language, but the version shown on Netflix is a Hindu dub. It won’t matter much to westerners, but it will to Indians.
One of the more interesting vocations in the film industry is the Foley Artist. Foley Artists are the percussionists behind all of the sounds you hear in any given film: telephones, doorbells, doors, thunderstorms, ocean waves, gunfire, fists (jaw? stomach? mirror?), barks and meows and roars, setting a plate, or a glass, or an anvil on a dining room table. You can record the real thing as it happens, but that’s not a sound you can then adjust much. Computers and synthesizers are good for many things, but sounds created from other objects and materials from the real world, by human artists, are almost infinitely alterable to be exactly what the director, or sound designer or pushy producer wants to hear.
In the superb and subversive Piaffe (Germany, 2022), trans artist Zara (Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau) is a foley artist with their own small studio, but they’ve recently been institutionalized. Their sister (and assistant) Eva (an entrancing Simone Bucio) is tasked to pick up an account where Zara left off; a pharmaceutical company has shot a costly but beautiful ad promoting its newest opiate, “Equili.” They’re using short scenes of a horse in dressage to evoke both the delicacy and the controlled power of the drug’s efficacy. (“The piaffe is a dressage movement where the horse is in a highly collected and cadenced trot, in place or nearly in place.”) Eva spends a long night in the studio clopping coconuts into dirt and jingling metal rings in the air and against her teeth, and delivers the tapes the next day. But the commercial’s producer thinks they’re terrible: “A machine made this. I need a human…” So Eva is back to the drawing board, as it were, redoubling her efforts, her resolve, and her empathy and understanding for her equine movie star. She goes to a stable to research and experience the real thing, then agonizes over each and every aural detail of every motion and point of contact between objects in the ad footage. Her heightened work ethic, and sensibilities, compel her to some great Foley work. And, unpredictably but, apparently, agreeably, Eva starts to grow a tail.
Despite her introversion, Eva’s no stranger to science and scientific inquiry in general – one of her day-jobs is as an attendant at a revolving display of plant life (a photoplasticon). The specimens are on a carousel, and each plant is observable through magnifying lenses stationed at seats around the display in order to study growth changes over a period of time; cilia undulate, leaves unfurl and extend, buds blossom in fractal precision. One frequent visitor is a botanist, Dr. Novak (Sebastian Rudolph) – she and he exchange glances, but are generally businesslike – that is, until her tail appears. Then Eva pays him a visit, bearing for him a vase of roses. They start a very intimate, kinky (but primarily silent) relationship, and Eva starts to explore her own relationship with her freshly augmented body. “Our concepts of male and female are insufficient to understand ferns,” he explains. “Ferns produce both sperm and eggs.” Animal instincts, and identities, and genders, turn out to perhaps be oddly malleable, something Zara certainly embodies as well. Eva is most certainly a human female animal, but her new equine influences are enhancing her as well – she frequents a dance club, and steps and prances to the thudding, driving beats of the club’s music. And she never hides her tail – it sways proudly behind her whether she’s in white slacks or it flips coyly from under her skirt hems.
There are some relatively kinky ideas here, and genuine eroticism, but I’d recommend the film unreservedly to audiences who can handle a challenge or two – its ideas are presented boldly but artfully. There’s very little speech throughout the film, but other sounds are crucial, and abundant. Director Ann Orem (with Thais Guisasola as co-writer) is expert at purely visual expression as well – much of her earlier work involved video and visual art installations, and each element in the film (her first feature) is designed and composed brilliantly.
There’s a branch of scientific inquiry that involves exploring and/or counteracting the institutional masculinization of much scientific information, through inadvertent or deliberate sexism and an overreliance on digital technologies. Muriel Del Don, in her Cineuropa article, points to Donna Haraway’s work in these fields as instructive – views on evolution and gender are becoming more expansive as a result – and it’s a perspective Ann Orem and her film shares to a fair extent. There are also parallels here to the work of David Cronenberg and Peter Strickland, but the film is Orem’s own unique work, through and through. Piaffe, indeed, may not get much U.S. distribution, but it’s featured at a number of film festivals (including the recent Chicago Int’l Film Festival, where it was one of my favorites) and I’m hoping it’ll see regular runs in U.S. art houses soon.
Periscope In The Bathtub 