two weeks and only one film
I also watched the complete Firefly series at isogon and mnemosyne15's place, and while (as with any series) I liked some episodes better than others, overall I was rather impressed with it. Very sad that it was cut so short.
Film Watched December 18 - December 31
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (Chantal Akerman, 1978) - I loved this film! In long, sparse sequences we follow a Belgian film director named Anna (played with beautiful despair by Aurore Clément) as she travels around Europe screening her latest film. We see absolutely nothing of that public life, however. The focus instead is the lonely life she leads in between, riding in trains late at night and staring at ceilings in an endless succession of empty hotel rooms, intermittently grasping at flings or making tenuous connections with new and old acquaintances.
For the first hour and a half of this film, we learn precious little about Anna herself. Her time alone is spent mostly in silence, and the audience is left to guess at the meaning behind her weary mask of a face. When she has encounters with other significant people -- the kind, gentle German man she almost sleeps with who takes her to meet his mother and daughter, or Ida, an old friend and the mother of a man Anna once (or twice) agreed to marry -- she remains largely silent, and they don't necessarily talk to her so much as they talk to themselves in her presence. As a result, we learn a great deal about Anna's past, how other people see her, and the various roles they expect her to play in their lives, while Anna herself remains an unknown variable we attempt to discern by adding up the other values that wander into the equation.
The quiet bombshell comes when Anna meets up with her mother, constantly referred to in the film but unseen until near the end. Finally, Anna seems to have a real, two-sided relationship with another character. The dialogue at this point is also rather telling. When Anna's mother says she misses having Anna to talk to, Anna objects, "You never spoke to me. Never." Her mother sighs and replies, "I knew you were there." This short exchange speaks volumes about their relationship.
Too tired to make the journey home, Anna and her mother spend the night in a hotel room, and it is here that the most important exchange in the film takes place. I won't reveal it here, but I have to say it was one of those wonderful moments that surprised me but brought everything else into place (and in many ways made this film feel like a "grown-up" version of Akerman's previous Je, tu, il, elle from ten years earlier).
With regard to technique, this film virtually looks like it was designed specifically to make me fall in love with it. The wide angle still shots that give a voice to emptiness and the fluid dolly shots that recall what Godard would start to do a decade later are, to my taste, perfectly composed and absolutely essential to the film's blueprint for loneliness. Moreover, I have a profound fondness for movement as seen from the inside of trains*, and this film utilizes that beauty to a degree I don't think I've ever witnessed before, in a quiet, subtle, but stunning 20-minute sequence in which Anna travels to meet her mother and meets another sleepless soul of the night in the process. I could feel my eyes glistening the entire time.
This is the third film I've seen by Chantal Akerman -- the other two are News from Home and Je, tu, il, elle -- and all three have been extraordinary. It's high time I saw Jeanne Dielman.
*This is something I should write an essay about one of these days.
Film Watched December 18 - December 31
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (Chantal Akerman, 1978) - I loved this film! In long, sparse sequences we follow a Belgian film director named Anna (played with beautiful despair by Aurore Clément) as she travels around Europe screening her latest film. We see absolutely nothing of that public life, however. The focus instead is the lonely life she leads in between, riding in trains late at night and staring at ceilings in an endless succession of empty hotel rooms, intermittently grasping at flings or making tenuous connections with new and old acquaintances.
For the first hour and a half of this film, we learn precious little about Anna herself. Her time alone is spent mostly in silence, and the audience is left to guess at the meaning behind her weary mask of a face. When she has encounters with other significant people -- the kind, gentle German man she almost sleeps with who takes her to meet his mother and daughter, or Ida, an old friend and the mother of a man Anna once (or twice) agreed to marry -- she remains largely silent, and they don't necessarily talk to her so much as they talk to themselves in her presence. As a result, we learn a great deal about Anna's past, how other people see her, and the various roles they expect her to play in their lives, while Anna herself remains an unknown variable we attempt to discern by adding up the other values that wander into the equation.
The quiet bombshell comes when Anna meets up with her mother, constantly referred to in the film but unseen until near the end. Finally, Anna seems to have a real, two-sided relationship with another character. The dialogue at this point is also rather telling. When Anna's mother says she misses having Anna to talk to, Anna objects, "You never spoke to me. Never." Her mother sighs and replies, "I knew you were there." This short exchange speaks volumes about their relationship.
Too tired to make the journey home, Anna and her mother spend the night in a hotel room, and it is here that the most important exchange in the film takes place. I won't reveal it here, but I have to say it was one of those wonderful moments that surprised me but brought everything else into place (and in many ways made this film feel like a "grown-up" version of Akerman's previous Je, tu, il, elle from ten years earlier).
With regard to technique, this film virtually looks like it was designed specifically to make me fall in love with it. The wide angle still shots that give a voice to emptiness and the fluid dolly shots that recall what Godard would start to do a decade later are, to my taste, perfectly composed and absolutely essential to the film's blueprint for loneliness. Moreover, I have a profound fondness for movement as seen from the inside of trains*, and this film utilizes that beauty to a degree I don't think I've ever witnessed before, in a quiet, subtle, but stunning 20-minute sequence in which Anna travels to meet her mother and meets another sleepless soul of the night in the process. I could feel my eyes glistening the entire time.
This is the third film I've seen by Chantal Akerman -- the other two are News from Home and Je, tu, il, elle -- and all three have been extraordinary. It's high time I saw Jeanne Dielman.
*This is something I should write an essay about one of these days.