Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles was most recently voted the greatest film of all time in the 2022 Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time, becoming the very first film directed by a woman to reach the first place in the prestigious list. Often described as portraying a feminist perspective on the life of a seemingly common woman, the impact of this film on future filmmaking and its long-lasting legacy on experimental cinema cannot be denied. Behind the screen, too, the director Chantal Akerman made some revolutionary choices: not only was a woman directing the film, but she also used a crew made up exclusively of women which is very rare now, let alone in 1975 when the film first came out. On paper, it does sound like the greatest film of all time, and I did want to love it given its monumental impact on filmmaking but does its hype and reputation live up to the reality of seeing the movie?

Akerman’s movie takes place over three days as the audience gets an insider look into the life of the titular protagonist, Jeanne Dielman, a widowed mother who spends her days cooking, cleaning, and running errands before her son comes home from school. As the film goes on, the audience soon learns that she earns money through prostitution with different clients every afternoon; this is just another part of the routine we soon become a part of during the runtime of the movie. The camera work in this movie is fascinating. The camera never moves for our benefit: it is not there to please the audience nor to facilitate our understanding of the story visually.

Instead, Akerman’s camera is merely an objective window into the character’s life. There is no judgment in its shots: its detached and unemotional visual style is what makes it such a respective look into Jeanne’s life. This is her life and her space and we are merely guests who are invited to look in, which adds a powerful layer to the way the audience might approach the viewing experience, especially when it comes to depicting the life and sexuality of this woman. Her sexual encounters are not filmed to please the audience but, instead, as merely a part of her routine, just like cooking dinner or turning the light off when she exits a room. By using this neutral camera style, Akerman tells us that one is not more important than the other but, instead, all actions are equal in Jeanne’s life and all make up her life routine equally.

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The shots are static and long; for example, they often linger on the same frame long after the action has happened. This undoubtedly adds to the objectivity of Akerman’s camera, but it also is fundamental to establishing the protagonist’s routine in the movie.  This soon creates a sense of repetitiveness in her life that is immediately established and reinforced through the entire – rather long – runtime of the movie. The constant repetition of the same moments allows the audience to become familiar with every aspect of Jeanne’s life and of her apartment which we come to know in detail as most of the film is made up almost exclusively of interior shots in Jeanne’s house. As soon as that routine starts to even slightly break, however, as it happens halfway through the second day, we can immediately sense that something is about to go horribly wrong. And when it does, it is almost satisfying to see her routine slightly fall apart as we can see Jeanne deciding to break away from a mould she seems to have been forced into by societal expectations. What happens when women dare rebel against the oppressive social hierarchy? Akerman seems to direct this question to the audience in the second half of the film.

While all of the ideas present in the film are brilliant and represent a very important innovation both in of style and themes, I ittedly really struggled with the runtime of the movie. The slow narrative and repetitive actions we constantly see are ultimately the point of the film – so much so that – and yet when it finally reached its end I could not help but feel like Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles could have been a lot shorter. Its incredibly innovative visual style make the film earn its rightful place as one of the greatest films in film history, but did I like it? That is an entirely other matter. While other Akerman films – Golden Eighties to mention one – might fit my personal taste in movies more, the impact and importance of this film in particular is undeniable. Whatever your personal opinion of this Jeanne Dielman might be, it is definitely worth watching on a big screen, especially in this newly restored version in 2K by CINEMATEK that the BFI is distributing as part of the Chantal Akerman retrospective season.

★★★★

Screening at the BFI from the 7th of February as part of the Chantal Akerman BFI Southbank retrospective / Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte, Henri Storck / Dir: Chantal Akerman