Chantal Akerman: Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Cinema Eupen, 2nd July 2023Part of the public programme for All our yesterdays
A film screening of Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles at the Eupen cinema, in collaboration with Kultkom.
Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman's magnum opus was voted the best film of all time in 2022. Some 1,600 film professionals (directors, critics, academics, curators) voted in the latest BFI (British Film Institute) poll, published every ten years.
Jeanne Dielman is a unique work in film history, in which the camera meticulously captures the daily life of a middle-aged widow. She makes the beds, cooks dinner for her son and does the shopping, underpinned by a sense of impending doom. In its enormous spareness, Akerman's film seems simple, but it encompasses a whole world.
Whether seen as an exacting character study or as one of cinema’s most hypnotic and complete depictions of space and time, Jeanne Dielman is an astonishing, compelling movie experiment, one that has been analyzed and argued over for decades.