A classic of both feminist and experimental filmmaking,
Chantal Akerman's marathon dissection of the life of Belgian housewife/mother/prostitute Jeanne Dielman (
Delphine Seyrig) stays on the surface of the details of Jeanne's humdrum daily life, as if it were a real-life, real-time documentary of an ordinary life, in the tradition of
Agnès Varda's earlier New Wave landmark,
Cleo From 5 to 7 (1961). Jeanne feeds her son, fixes potatoes, does the marketing, entertains gentlemen -- but things slowly, almost imperceptibly start to go wrong, first those potatoes, and then, finally, something more shocking. Akerman sets out to capture the rhythm of daily life, even as that pace sets us up (after several hours) for the almost tossed-off, blink-and-you'll-miss-it climax. This isn't a film for everyone, but its effort to document a woman's life, as well as its radical rethinking of both time and action, make it a landmark experiment, and a must-see for viewers interested in the outer reaches of what a film can be. ~ Leo Charney, All Movie Guide