Chantal Akerman Collection - Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

THE CHANTAL AKERMAN COLLECTION (the 70's)

Hôtel Monterey (1972) Je, tu, il, elle (1975)

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) (2-disc)

News from Home (1976) Les rendez- vous d’Anna (1978)

"Comparable in force and originality to Godard or Fassbinder, Chantal Akerman is arguably the most important European director of her generation." - J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

"The films of Chantal Akerman are the single most important and coherent body of work by a woman director in the history of the cinema." - Film Center Gazette of the School of the Art Institute

In 1976 the French newspaper Le Monde heralded Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles as "the first masterpiece in the feminine in the history of the cinema." The unconventional style and subject made the film a powerful sign of a decade when feminism erupted into the arena of politics and film.

Akerman the filmmaker came of age at the same time as the new age of feminism, and her films became key texts in the nascent field of feminist film theory. Feminism posed the apparently simple question of who speaks when a woman in film speaks (as character, as director ...); Akerman insisted convincingly that her films' modes of address rather than their stories alone are the locus of their feminist perspective. The many arguments about what form a "new women's cinema" should take revolved around a presumed dichotomy between so-called realist (meaning accessible) and avant-garde (meaning elitist) work; Akerman's films rendered such distinctions irrelevant and illustrated the reductiveness of the categories. - Professor Janet Bergstrom, UCLA, in Sight and Sound

Born in Brussels, Belgium in 1950, Chantal Akerman is a filmmaker whose work gives new meaning to the term "independent film." An Akerman film is an exercise in pure independence, pure creativity, and pure art. The viewer must give him- or herself over completely to the experience of the film, to watch with open eyes and an open mind. To label Akerman's work "minimalist" or "structuralist" or "feminist" is to miss most of what she is about. Strong themes in her films include women at work and at home, women's relationships to men, women, and children, food, love, sex, romance, art, and storytelling. Each Akerman film is a world unto itself and demands to be explored on its own terms. Her films are the subject of two recent books: Identity and Memory: The Films of Chantal Akerman by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster and Nothing Happens: Chantal Akerman's Hyperrealist Everday by Ivone Margulies...

Excerpt from First Run Icarus Films website located HERE

Titles

Hôtel Monterey
This early experimental feature, slightly longer than an hour, by Chantal Akerman (1972), shot silently and brilliantly by Babette Mangolte, explores the corridors, lobby, elevators, and rooms of a cheap New York hotel. Occasionally the rooms' solitary occupants are glimpsed, but this only increases the overall atmosphere of eerie isolation and quiet, and reveals perhaps more than any other Akerman film how central an influence Edward Hopper has been in her work.

Excerpt from Jonathan Rosenbaum's capsule at The Chicago Reader located HERE

Je, tu, il, elle
Chantal Akerman directed and plays the lead in this early (1974) black-and-white feature that charts three successive stages of its heroine's love life. In the first part she lives like a hermit, eating only sugar, compulsively rearranging the furniture in her one-room flat, and apparently writing and rewriting a love letter; in part two she hitches a ride with a truck driver and eventually gives him a hand job; in part three she arrives at the home of her female lover, and they proceed to make frantic love. This is every bit as obsessive and as eerie as Akerman's later Jeanne Dielman and Toute une nuit, though not as striking on a visual level; as in all her best work, however, the minimalist structure is both potent and haunting.

Excerpt from Jonathan Rosenbaum's capsule at The Chicago Reader located HERE

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Chantal Akerman's feature is one of the few 'feminist' movies that's as interesting aesthetically as politically. It covers three days in the life of a bourgeois widow who supports herself and her somewhat moronic son by taking in a 'gentleman caller' each afternoon. Much of the film simply chronicles her ritualised routine, but does it in an ultra-minimal, precise style that emphasises the artifice of the whole thing...and gradually the artifice (coupled with the fact that Delphine Seyrig plays the woman) shifts the plot into melodrama, so that the film becomes a bourgeois tragedy.

Excerpt from TimeOut Film Guide located HERE

News From Home
An early experimental feature by Chantal Akerman (1976, 85 min.) that juxtaposes images of New York City with the texts of letters written to Akerman by her mother in Belgium and read aloud offscreen by Akerman. This is one of the best depictions of the alienation of exile that I know.

Excerpt from Jonathan Rosenbaum's capsule at The Chicago Reader located HERE

Les Rendez-vous d'Anna
The succes de scandale of Jeanne Dielman brought Chantal Akerman the opportunity to make a film for the French major Gaumont; the result was this moody, terse, haunting feature about a woman filmmaker (Aurore Clement) on a promotional tour of Europe. In each city she takes the chance to look up relatives, friends, and ex-lovers, but none of the meetings is wholly satisfying; some block to communication always remains. Akerman's use of long takes and open spaces delineates the gulf that separates her characters from their environment and from each other. While the atmosphere of anomie may be familiar from countless European art films, it is Akerman's intense emotionality, held desperately in check by her precise camera style, that makes this effort something special.

Excerpt from Dave Kehr's capsule at The Chicago Reader located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Releases: 1972 - 1978

DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Cinéart (5-disc) - Region 2 - PAL

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Cinéart - Region 2 - PAL
Time:	Respectively 59:32, 1:22:09, 3:13:00 + 1:25:09 + 2:01:56
Bitrate: Hôtel Monterey and Je, tu, il, elle
Bitrate: Jeanne Dielman (film)
Bitrate: News From Home
Bitrate: Les rendez- vous d’Anna
Audio	French (2.0 stereo)
Subtitles	English, Dutch, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Cinéart Aspect Ratio: All Original Aspect Ratios - 1.33 for all but Jeanne Dielman and Les rendez- vous d’Anna which are anamorphic 1.66:1 Edition Details: NOTE: ALL EXTRAS HAVE OPTIONAL ENG. and DUTCH SUBTITLES • Saute ma ville (1968) and La Chambre (1972) • 3 separate Interviews - with Babette Mangolte, mother Natalia Akerman and Aurore Clement (approx. 1 hour 20 minutes) • Interview with Chantal Akerman (17:15) • Featurette: Autour de Jeanne Dielman (1:18:25) DVD Release Date: April 18th, 2007 Custom 4-tiered case (see image above) Chapters: various

Comments:

Many cineastes were riding a roller coaster of emotion when Carlotta films announced a Coffret Chantal Akerman - The 70's HERE but were later disappointed when it was confirmed that they did not include English subtitles. The fabulous news is that Cinéart (Belgium) have released a DVD collection, with the exact same films (Hôtel Monterey / Je, tu, il, elle / Jeanne Dielman, / News from home and Les Rendez-vous d'Anna), it has many viable supplements, AND does offer optional English (as well as Dutch) subtitles. Great news!

NOTE: Hotel Monterey and the short La Chambre have no dialogue and hence have no subtitle options.

Image quality is very acceptable and look accurate to the source prints. I see no digital manipulation. All are original aspect ratio - meaning 1.33 except for Anna and Dielman which are 1.66 anamorphic. I suspect that these are as good as we will see Akerman's 70's films look on DVD - unless, of course, Criterion do Jeanne Dielman one day (I have heard no rumors to that effect). The latest - Rendez-vous d'Anna - looks the best followed by Jeanne Dielman. The others show their frugal production limitations.

Important news is that the supplements ALL have optional English and Dutch subtitles.

On the News From Home disc we have two Akerman shorts - Saute ma ville (1968) running 12 minutes plus a silent camera piece, running 11 minutes, called La Chambre (1972). On the Les rendez- vous d’Anna DVD we have 3 separate Interviews - one with Babette Mangolte, a second with the director's mother Natalia Akerman and another with Aurore Clement (total approx. 1 hour 20 minutes). On the supplements disc for Jeanne Dielman there is an interview with Chantal Akerman (17:15) and a featurette called Autour de Jeanne Dielman. It is a limited production behind the scenes expose and runs for 1:18:25. I found it kind of boring.

The package is divided as follows - Hôtel Monterey and Je, tu, il, elle share a dual-layered disc. Jeanne Dielman is on its own (also dual-layered). The third disc has News From Home and the three interviews as extras, then the DVD with Les rendez- vous d’Anna has the two Akerman shorts and the 5th DVD is the bonus disc (Akerman interview and Behind the Scenes) is single-layered.

It took a couple of weeks for my set to arrive from overseas - but, obviously, it eventually did. I recommend it very strongly - these are memorable early works from a master filmmaker.