Ep. 90: Jeanne Dielman and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna: A Chantal Akerman mother’s day

Alex Heeney

Welcome to the Seventh Row podcast, a weekly podcast in which we compare and contrast films to discover new insights and context for films both new and old. I'm your host Alex Heeney, editor-in-chief of Seventh Row. Seventh Row is a nonprofit online film criticism, publication and publishing house dedicated to helping you discover the best under the radar, female directed and foreign films. We want to help you think deeply about why and how great films make you feel the way they do. If you liked this podcast, consider becoming a film adventure. Remember, as a film adventurer, you'll receive weekly streaming recommendations by email, discounts on our merchandise and books, access to our back catalogue of podcasts episodes, and a free ebook. As soon as you make your purchase visit seven-row.com/join to find out more that's seventh-row.com/slash. Soon, all episodes more than six months old will only be available to our members. As a member, you'll receive a personalized premium feed of all of our episodes, and you can still listen to it from your favorite pod catcher

Orla Smith

So just before we get on with the episode, we wanted to let you know that we have a new book out, which is super exciting. Our latest ebook is called In their own words: fiction directors. It is unlike any ebook that we've ever made before, I'd say usually our ebooks focus on one theme or one filmmaker. And this is a book about filmmaking in general. Basically what we did is we went back through like the entire history of seven throw all the interviews with directors that we've ever done. And we pick the 70 plus best ones, we arrange them into nine different sections, including like working in different genres shooting post production, film versus theater, a bunch of others. And within each section there are questions so in like the section on devising and aesthetic questions include, how do you visualize memory on screen? Do you prefer to shoot on film or digital? How do you choose an aspect ratio? And within each question, you can find answers pulled from those 70 interviews for different directors so under do you prefer to shoot on film or digital? You can read six different filmmakers talking about their opinion on that question, which often those opinions vary wildly, but they're always incredibly well reasoned. And it's fascinating to kind of read them side by side. So you've got established filmmakers like Mike Lee, you have the words like Terence Davies you have sort of like beloved contemporary artists like Céline Sciamma, Kelly Reichardt. So you have people who've just made that first feature like Quinn Armstrong, you have the recently Oscar nominated Chloé Zhao. And yeah, it's a really fascinating book I think for if you're a film fan, I think reading it is going to help you understand the craft of cinema better, it will change the way you watch films, if you're a filmmaker, it's really vital resource. I make films myself, and I think that when I work on a project, I'm going to refer back to this book, if I'm stuck on a particular part of the creative process, I'm going to flip to a section of the book that's relevant to it and you know, get advice from the best. And for anyone, I think it's a vital way to discover like your next favorite filmmaker, if you'd like their insights. So we did a whole episode on this a couple episodes back on in their own words, fiction directors were the editors of the book kind of chat about what it's all about, and how he put it together. And if you want to go ahead and order it, you can just go to their own words.ca.

Alex Heeney

Today on the podcast, we are going to be talking about two films by Chantel Akerman as part of our special Mother's Day episode. So last year, we did dead mothers with stories we tell mouthpiece and louder than mom because

Orla Smith

we want you to be happy on Mother's Day.

Brett Pardy

This year, we're moving to moms who are alive,

Alex Heeney

they are alive, yeah, in the film.

So we're gonna be talking about Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles andLes Rendez-vous d'Anna.

Orla Smith

We're gonna make lots of good use of Alex's French today.

Alex Heeney

So for this discussion we have with us special guests contributing editor Lindsey Pugh.

Lindsay Pugh

Hello

Alex Heeney

and our associate editor Brett Pardy.

Brett Pardy

Hello

Alex Heeney

and executive editor Orla Smith.

Orla Smith

Hello. So this is a segment of the episode where we would read out reviews but we don't have any so you Yes, you could fix that by go. to Apple podcasts leave us a five star review. And we will read it out next week on the show. And we would be so so happy to do that. We love getting reviews and always makes our week. So go ahead and do that. And you will hear me read out your words, not live on air next week.

Alex Heeney

Do you want to do these other announcements we have this list of filmmakers inspired by Akerman that we did podcasts about.

Orla Smith

Akerman is an interesting subject because you watch our films and it's immediately clear how many filmmakers that we love today have been like heavily inspired by her. And a lot of them have like said that they've been inspired by her like, I mean, I love Kelly Reichardt. And watching these two films I like thought a lot about her films. And she's said to have been inspired by Aekerman. We wrote a book about her, you can go to reichardtbook.com to find that but I particularly thought a lot in Jeanne Dielman about Lindsay's essay on Meek's cutoff, which is about like how that film makes cut off makes sort of like the invisible, women's work of like, you know, washing dishes and whatever, like the things that we see women doing the background in westerns, but it's never the subject becomes the subject and becomes me it's an invisible work that's made visible through the act of making a film about it. And I thought a lot about that. And jJeanne Dielman, which is like very much what is Jeanne Dielman is all about is about like what if we put the housewife in the center and like the women's work she does becomes like super important, dramatically important. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of films, I'd say a lot of filmmakers who are inspired by Akerman, Joanna Hogg. We wrote a book about her as well, which is that the thesouvenirbook.com and we did a podcast episode on The Souvenir. And we also did a podcast episode on Meek's Cut Off and almost all of Kelly Reichardt's other film so you can go find those. But Joanna Hogg, I think actually, like, helped do retrospective screenings of Akermans work or helped restore some of them. Yeah, she's been I mean, she's a super fan of Chantal Akerman. And you can see that in her films as well. And I don't know that like The Assistant feels very sort of Akerman inspired. We did a podcast episode on that, with Lindsay comparing it to Promising Young Woman which isn't very Chantal Akerman inspired. Although I did make a joke to a friend that when I saw the end of Jeanne Dielman and I said, if someone has someone written I think piece of that how SJeanne Dielman is the original Promising Young Woman and I hope they haven't, but I think that would be funny if they did.

Brett Pardy

I mean, really, along with maybe a couple other directors, that Akerman is really like a lot of modern kind of like cinema is really is really owes a debt to Akerman'ss kind of exploration of just time on screen. That kind of the entire development like slow film, I suppose there's a lot of movies that are sometimes get called like slow cinema and slow cinema is usually like really slow so these films maybe more like semi-slow cinema, but they all basically owe a debt to Ackerman.

Orla Smith

I mean, I remember seeing Certain Women with my dad in the cinema, and he is not the sort of person who would usually seek out "slow" cinema like that. I remember that a long shot of like, just like a wide shot of Lily Gladstone just like tending to horses in a barn and he was he was like, you know, you watch that for several minutes. So that should be boring, but it's actually quite relaxing to watch someone just like do chores. And watching Jeanne Dielman I was like, yeah, that's that's definitely the way where this is from where this originates, or maybe not originates, but a huge influence on someone like Reichardt and watching chores can be can be fun.

Alex Heeney

Fun is not the word I'd use here. Interesting or compelling.

Orla Smith

Interesting. Yeah, exactly.

Brett Pardy

I think the first time I can think of that has a long extended scene focusing on chores is let me just check the year. Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D in 1952. Kind of like one of the last Italian neorealist films has a long segment of someone making coffee then kind of film academics in the 50s were obsessed with. They would write all they would keep writing about this scene is amazing. She just makes coffee! And like why then we're left to think like what what is going on here? Why Why? Why do we have to watch her make coffee? It's just one scene in the movie. The rest of the movie has way more plot than Jeanne Dielman does.

Orla Smith

It is the original pie from Ghost Story.

Brett Pardy

Yeah, it's kind of like one scene that inspired Akerman took that to the to a whole nother level of like, what if it's for hours?

Orla Smith

and she was right to think it.

Alex Heeney

Like we should give some more background on who Akerman was and a bit about where these films fall into her career. And her relationship to her mother, which is very important in all of them.

Lindsay Pugh

Yeah, there's a ton to say here, but to try to be very brief, Akerman was a Belgian film director. Her parents were Polish Jews. They emigrated to Belgium after the Holocaust and her mother's they're survivors. They are survivors. Well, I think her father was not. It's like a whole long story. But I think that her father remained in Belgium during the Holocaust, and her mother went to Auschwitz. So her mother survived Auschwitz, both of her parents, Akerman's grandparents, were killed. And then her mother came back to Belgium and then I think she married her father. So this is like the environment in which Akerman grows up. It's like her mom is a survivor of Auschwitz doesn't talk about it, really, with anyone. But Akerman grows up being fascinated about what happened to her mother and trying to figure it out. And she talks a little bit about how for a lot of her career, that's what it was about trying to figure out her mother's experience and trying to talk about it and understand it. And then she sort of realized that it was her mother's experience. And she couldn't do any of that. So she does talk about how that's very influential and a big part of her life. And you you see it in I would say almost every one of her films. But so she, as a young person got into cinema after she saw Godard's Pierot le fou and realized that cinema could be experimental and personal, and it could make you feel things and be high art. So she

Alex Heeney

and in which there's murder with scissors.

Lindsay Pugh

Gotta get the scissors. But yeah, so she went to film school, she ended up dropping out. And then she moved to New York City. And when she was in New York City, she got really involved in the experimental film scene. So studying Michael Snow and Stan Brakhage. And then she met Babette Mangolte, her cinematographer, who she worked with on Jeanne Dielman, and then a lot of other films and made some lower budget films there. And then she moved back to Belgium, and she made a film called Je, Tu, Il, Elle, which is sort of considered a landmark lesbian film, and at the time, it got recognition, but it definitely didn't really like put her on the map. It wasn't getting her immense funding opportunities. She wasn't yet widely known. But her next film that she made was Jeanne Dielman, and

Orla Smith

that film at 25

Alex Heeney

at 25. And that

Orla Smith

Having already made several other films.

Lindsay Pugh

Yes. And so that that was like the film that put her on the map. And did you did you guys watch that Criterion interview with her where she talks about the screening at Cannes' Director's fortnight? Yeah, yeah.

Alex Heeney

You want to tell it tell the story.

Lindsay Pugh

Oh, she just talks about how people were walking out and they were pissed. And she was sitting next to Delphine Seyrig and, and who was it that got up and was like, this is crazy. She this woman's crazy. It was like Marguerite Duras. But then the next day, like a lot of people wanted to program it for their festivals. And she like had what she sort of described as like overnight recognition. So that was like a huge film for her

Alex Heeney

and she was informed that she was like an important great director is what she said.

Lindsay Pugh

Yeah, at 25. So no pressure for the rest of your career.

Brett Pardy

Delphine Seyrig was in India Song by Duras at the same festival.

Lindsay Pugh

Oh, really?

Alex Heeney

I didn't realize that was the same year. That's funny.

Brett Pardy

That'd be kind of awkward. Yeah, I'm looking at the Cannes that year.

Orla Smith

Maybe she just thought Delphine herself was crazy.

Lindsay Pugh

Yeah, so the next film that she made was News from Home. But that was a documentary. That was in 77. And her next feature follow up was Les Rendez-vous L'Anna. And it's sort of I think, got ignored at the time a little bit because Jeanne Dielman was such a big deal. So it sort of got forgotten at the time, but I feel like it's getting more play. Although it doesn't you really usually come up on like the Canon list of Akerman films that you have to see but I think that is a very because nobody's seen it, but it's a very good movie. And everyone should

Alex Heeney

Better than Jeanne Dielman. Hot Take.

Lindsay Pugh

I would agree maybe.

Orla Smith

You're all ready with these hot takes Alex. No one needs a Chantal Akerman in the 1970s hot take. It's been gone.

Alex Heeney

Like a 50 year old hot take.

Orla Smith

It's a moldy take.

Alex Heeney

But I think it's worth mentioned that she did fiction and nonfiction films throughout her career.

Lindsay Pugh

Yes.

Brett Pardy

Although for the most part difference between the two is a bit murky, for the most part. There is her romantic comedy.

Alex Heeney

And she did a musical and a farce too. So like you but they're not the films of hers that that I kind of like hear about are all her 70s films and like No Home Movie because it was her final film. It feels like there's very little conversation about what She did in between. Well, yeah, there's very little conversation about A Couch in New York. It was on Mubi UK recently. Or what was the other one you said Brett?

Brett Pardy

Golden Eighties, which is the musical

Lindsay Pugh

That one is so fun and colorful and awesome. That's one of my favorites.

Orla Smith

I think a lot of her films for the record are on Criterion Channel as like, relatively recently a bunch of them were added, which is good. So if people listen to this, then they can probably check out a whole bunch of them there

Alex Heeney

And a lot of the ones that aren't on there on like OVID or topic or hoopla, so they're most of them are available on the internet somewhere.

Orla Smith

It's worth saying that Anna is like semi autobiographical.

Alex Heeney

So is every single one of her films.

Brett Pardy

That's what I was thinking, like Anna and the difference between that and like News From Home or

Orla Smith

right, but I mean, specifically that it's about her as a filmmaker, and I assume that the experience is like based on like, touring with your own dieleman. And like going to film festivals and showing a film, which is interesting. Like you follow up your, like, acclaimed masterpiece with a film about promoting your acclaimed masterpiece. Yeah, but you don't see her doing any promoting and you don't see any of the film festivals or any screenings.

Brett Pardy

And you do see a lot of sad hotels.

Lindsay Pugh

Yeah, adoring fans

Orla Smith

Should we move to why we put these together.

Alex Heeney

Yeah, so this is Lindsay's brilliant brainchild. So, Lindsay, why did we pair them together?

Lindsay Pugh

Well, so to be fair, I think there are like a million different comparisons, like you could pull any two films of hers together. And there there was something to say. But I think these two are interesting, because in Jeanne Dielman, we get the mother's story. And Akerman said that that movie is a love letter to her mother, Nellie and then in Les Rendez-vous d'Anna, we get the Akerman side of the story where the protagonist is sort of the Akerman stand in. So you get the mother and then you get the daughter. And that relationship is one I think that is worth thinking about and talking about for Mother's Day, because we all have moms, and we all are children, of parents of mothers. It's true. And two, I think you see, like a lot of parallels in the way that those two movies are shot, as well. But again, you could say that really about any Akerman films, I think they all have a very distinct look.

Alex Heeney

Yeah, although these feel like real polar opposites. Because one is set inside an apartment, the basically the entire film. And then the other one is you never get into anybody's apartment, and you're in constantly in different cities and on a train and in hotels. So it's sort of like the complete inverse of that.

Lindsay Pugh

totally.

Alex Heeney

Should we move to talking about Jeanne Dielman Yes, go ahead. You want to read our synopsis?

Brett Pardy

I mean, this is probably the easiest, 201 minute long movie to synopsizve.

Lindsay Pugh

Yes.

Orla Smith

Jeanne Dielman follows the titular character played by Delphine Seyrig. The full title is her address, and over the course of

Brett Pardy

They doxxed her.

Orla Smith

and over the course of three seemingly normal days, we follow her doing things chores. She's a widow with a high school aged son, and she abides by a very strict routine, like including making her bag to fix the upper flask of coffee in the morning, which she drinks throughout the day. And making sure dinner is ready by the time her son comes home from school. She has like a set meal that she makes every day. And so one day she makes like potatoes and meat and then she makes breaded veal the next day and then meatloaf. She also engages in sex work in the afternoons and she meets male clients in her bedroom in order to make ends meet. However, about halfway through the film, they're meeting with a client which is a you know, one normal movie lens into the film 90 minutes. A meeting with a client which takes place off screen sets her off kilter, and her routine begins to fall apart. Yeah, I read the sheer shock horror of her not replacing the top of the thing where she's she must be having a mental breakdown.

Lindsay Pugh

And then she could have made mashed potatoes out of the potatoes. But that's tomorrow's meal. So had to throw the potatoes.

Brett Pardy

And in one of the strange cameos of film, the second client is played by the guy who is the co-founder of Cahiers du Cinéma, which is one of those places where I was obsessed with that coffee making scene.

Orla Smith

He had to eat look, Jeanne Dielman also makes coffee he had to be there.

Alex Heeney

She has a real traumatic coffeemaking scene where it doesn't taste right. It's just to make it again, it's like the end of the world well, so we're gonna To play you the trailer, this is not a film with much dialogue. It's like a lot of sounds of her doing chores and preparing food. So that's what you're gonna hear.

Brett Pardy

I've never seen the trailer to Jeanne Dielman. I can only imagine.

Alex Heeney

But that's an important part of the vibe. So we thought, you know, we'll share it with you. So here it is.

Orla Smith

Yeah, so for us who wanted to like go around and ask why do we like this film? It seems like a strange question to ask about a film that's so beloved, that let's ask it anyway, I guess, Lindsay, could you give us as the person who who decided we were going to watch this? You took three hours of my life away from me Lindsay. I appreciate it.

Lindsay Pugh

I think that this film is really interesting, because it has the feeling of anhedonia. Like if I had to describe it in one word, that would be the word. And I think it's really interesting listening to how Akerman talks about it versus how I feel about it. She said something like about how when Jeanne Dielman sleeps with her second client and has the orgasm, her first one ever that it then gets her off track for her routine, and that she ends up killing the third man she sleeps with because she can't have another man messing up her routine. And I hadn't thought that at all while watching Well, you

Alex Heeney

don't see her interaction with the second client?

Orla Smith

Yeah, I didn't realize that. That was what that happened.

Lindsay Pugh

Yeah, no, neither did I all of that stuff is is very, doesn't come across in the film to me. But the thing that I think is interesting about it, or how I read it is like Jeanne Dielman being this person who wants to blow up her life, but doesn't know how, because it's become such that so right. Yeah. So I mean, to me, that is all very relatable like having this life you've created for yourself that is a present and not knowing how to get out of it.

Orla Smith

That's interesting, because the idea that she was in, like she was inspired to make the film by watching her mother, and the unknowability of that person that she's made a film where we can have completely different interpretations of this woman than the interpretation she has of say it's like a standard for her mother.

Lindsay Pugh

Tha'ts a really, that's a really good way of putting it out this person is it's all about us trying to figure out what's going on with Jeanne, like, what is her deal? Why is she acting this way? What is going on inside and all you have are these little clues and how a person interprets it, I think is going to be wildly different or could be wildly different. I could be persuaded to think that this movie is about a number of things.

Alex Heeney

And I think it would make sense to Akerman if she was like this young person, sort of almost rebelling against the order of her mother's life that she might as someone who like wants to break away from that and is doing it might struggle to think of this woman has like wanting to break away from her life, but not being able to do it. She asked her imagine it as like, she is like imposing this on herself. And she wants that, to keep it that way. But I don't know, it's interesting to psychoanalyze her, but I really liked that the film very much leaves it open. And we don't have to take the director's word. I mean, I watched it for the first time this week, because I think I know a lot of people I'm in the same boat, as a lot of people have, like, we put off this film, because it's very long and it had been sold to me wrong, I think, because when I first heard about the film, it was kind of pitched to me as like, you're not gonna enjoy this film. It's an academic exercise kind of but it's really interesting is like, an exercise is like a filming exercise of like, what you can do with time is not meant to be enjoyed. That was sort of how I had like, imagined it, I file it away in my brain based on what people have told me about it. So I didn't expect to like watch it and it is very well paced. And I you know, I didn't have a problem sitting there for three hours and 20 minutes because I found it like so absorbing, and it's a film that moves like it. It's not just an academic exercise. It's a really fascinating character study. You want to know more and there is like this really intriguing progression throughout the three days. That's like I love this idea that like when you bring a film down to such a low stakes of like, is she making coffee? Is she gonna make the coffee correctly then anything that happens feels monumental. And also watching it I immediately was able to recognize as we said before, like how many of my favorite films incredibly inspired by this film like certain women for example is that I thought that a lot like the way that people in like domestic spaces are shot and the way that like process is shot and definitely like Kelly Reichardt's films, how she shoots sort of people like doing mundane things, and is really interested in that. Yeah, I was big fan. Yeah, it's funny that people talk about this film is like insurance cinema. And like, I've seen 90 minute films that were more difficult to get through, like you want to talk about like endurance cinema. Winter Sleep is three and a half hours of like, can I deal with these people who are so awful like, don't I deal with enough awful people in my, in my day to day life? I'm gonna force myself to sit through this. This is like not like that. I mean, as Brett has said, like there's there's slow cinema that has developed in the wake of Chantal Akerman and like, definitely, it's not like an action... well I don't know some people think it is an action movie, but

Orla Smith

I'd like to meet those people.

Brett Pardy

someone dies.

Alex Heeney

Yeah, that's true.

Brett Pardy

There's a killing

Alex Heeney

Yeah, it's not boring. It doesn't really feel like you know, it's sort of like a Wiseman movie, in that you're like, oh my God, three and a half hours. And then you're like, you know, I actually went by fast.

Brett Pardy

Yeah, for me, when slow cinema works, it's about finding something that is like that would just kind of be passed over and any other film, but finding a way to make it like interesting to watch and engage in is does. It is a large part of her going about doing your housework, but it really makes you kind of pay attention to, you know, all the work that goes into day to day life that nobody really appreciates, thinks about, and you just kind of just kind of finally pay attention to it. And we realized by seeing something on film, but you kind of think about it more than maybe you would there's just happening around you. Because by being like up on screen, it's important.

Orla Smith

Yeah. And that's why Akerman said she wanted like a movie star to play the role, because then it was just a normal person that you like, wasn't seen to be glamorous. And you wouldn't think about the fact that she was unglamorous here but like you pay more attention because it's Delphine Seyrig playing this character does it was interesting.

Brett Pardy

And I imagine this plays better in cinemas than it does watching it at home even like it's good watching at home. But like being in an environment where you're like, you have to focus on it, I think would be

Alex Heeney

like I get it. She's aggressively peeling the potatoes.

Orla Smith

One benefit of watching it at home is that like halfway through the film, I was able to pause a film, go and make myself a cup of tea kind of think oh, this is so accurate. Akerman. You stand there and watch it boil on. I took extra time because I was like I need to you know, I need to be like my heroes, Jeanne.

Brett Pardy

Yeah, no, it's just funny because I don't usually think that I'm usually a big proponent of watching movies at home. I don't think that it doesn't like go like, Oh, you got to see this in the big screen. I'm like, do I really, but this film.

Orla Smith

I mean, as much as I said that I instantly saw how it had influenced lots of films that I love. I also saw how it had maybe influenced film that I don't love

Alex Heeney

Oh my god, righ.

Orla Smith

I feel like so many, like slow cinema films don't just don't understand, like, why this film works. Like I think it works partly because I mean, amongst other reasons, it works partly because she's chosen a character that we actually want to watch closely and care to watch like, what she the details of what she's doing. And it does. I mean, as much as like the slow cinema aspect of it was like a big, huge influential part of this film. Another like kind of groundbreaking thing was the idea of like putting a housewife on the screen and asking us to look at like this woman's work and consider it as important and it's like we see the the work that she does when she's alone to make it look to everyone else that everything's in order like it's important to her that the house is clean and that have the food is ready as soon as son gets home so that he can seamlessly come in and have his meal

Brett Pardy

that the shoes are shined every day

Orla Smith

putting all this labor into making sure that everything is in order for herself and for other people, which is you know, something that is like inherently by its nature, like invisible work, and by putting on screen it is fascinating, especially thinking about it in the context of the time it was release it would have been even rarer to see stuff like that. But yeah, she's an interesting character to watch which I can't say for a lot of slow cinema films that want me to like watch someone that I don't care about

Alex Heeney

I think also like there's something about the film where it's it's not just that like oh, watching somebody you know, like make feel cutlets is the most exciting thing in cinema. It's not really like and I feel like people misinterpret it as though like, oh, like she's just really interested in the way that she happens to cook. But like the the time and the the duration of it, it kind of speaks to the care and and you use the word labor or lead, I think that's a really key part is that you see the labor and care that goes into like feeding her son and making sure that she can make ends meet for her son. And I think you, you know, to the point that when he shows up and he's like, can we skip our walk tonight? Like, we ate so late? I'm like, I want to punch you in the face kid. Do you not know what your mother went through to make you this meal? Or like, you know, you even see like, she makes herself to potatoes. And she gives him five potatoes. And then she complains that like he doesn't eat enough and you're like, Oh, she just loves this kid so much. And he just does not appreciate it.

Brett Pardy

Yeah, and it's not like kind of it's not really like replicating realism in the sense of wow was how people go about it. Like it's really rigorously planned in a way that I think a lot of the slower films you see at film festivals are not always... that idea that doing this is extremely hard to capture on film, because you got to plan every second of it and still make it seem like it's day to day life even though you've meticulously scripted out and planned what's going to be

Orla Smith

I mean, there's a really great, it's a really great behind the scenes documentary on Criterion Channel where you see her come in rehearsing with Delphine Seyrig and some of the she's doing as well. And it's very interesting to see how particular Akerman is, I mean, not that she like never changes any of the details. But she had a script written down with like the exact minutiae of of what happens and has this very specific timing in her head and planned out. And they rehearse the timing again.

Alex Heeney

And again. I feel like one of the poor lessons that was learned by some filmmakers who watch this film was like, oh, there's a scene in which Jeanne Dielman stares off into space for like a minute, I should start my movie with somebody staring off into space for a minute, that will be interesting. And it's like, that's not what's interesting. It's interesting, because she has always been moving, and suddenly she's not moving. And you're like, Oh my god, it's the end of like, what's gonna happen, like, she woke up an hour early, and now she's finished her chores, and especially when you've seen like, on day one, like her meal is ready, just as soon as she gets rid of her male client. It's like, also perfectly timed that you can see she's been doing it forever. And then all of a sudden, it's like food is made. And now what am I going to do?

Am I gonna, like sit in a chair like

Brett Pardy

Oh, it's so sad. It's like, she finally has a bit of like, free time. And she's like, I don't know what to do.

Lindsay Pugh

I wouldn't feel that way if we hadn't watched her go through her meticulous routine, if we didn't experience it with her to know that that's what she does. All of the other little like mess ups would go unnoticed. So it's like, yes, it's slow. Yes, it can be tedious, but it's always purposeful.

Alex Heeney

Yeah, perfectly said.

Brett Pardy

And I think that's why people keep coming back to it that it is actually quite a replay. I'm not saying you've watched necessarily several times and like shorter period of time, but it is a very rewatchable film.

Orla Smith

I'm not sure like it was an easier watch, then Les Rendez-vous D'Anna, because in that film is sort of so sort of like bleak almost for the character, the character doesn't sort of move like she, she is sort of lonely at the beginning and lonely at the end, whereas Jeanne Dielman absolutely has this sort of like propelling force, like it's, you can feel that it's leading up to something. And there's something quite compelling about that. Especially because you have been trained by the film to like, watch for the tiniest details that you're really really sort of, like, paying attention and, and eager to and to know. Well, she remembered her turn the lights off. Yeah, I really like that. Also that and you very rarely see this with like films that have, you know, partly set in like an apartment or a living space that you really get to know the geography of the living space, like Akerman. And and she said, it's an interview that she always wants to put scenes with characters walking through the hallways, in films, because usually, like the action happens in the room that they're leaving, and in the room that they arrive in, and lots of films would cut out the moving from one to the other. But she always makes sure we see a john like leaving the room going down the hallway into another room. We get to know the contours of her house very well. And because you know, she's stuck there all the time. And it's all she sees, and we get to know like she does,

Alex Heeney

and that's something Dick Pope said to you, too, I believe about working with Mike Leigh and our Peterloo in Process ebook. Mikeleighbook.com is that there's a lot of scenes in hallways and shot through doors.Okay, so I feel like we got to address the murder in the room. Yeah,

Brett Pardy

I feel totally unequipped to talk.

Alex Heeney

Yeah. I mean,

Orla Smith

Are we going to war?

Alex Heeney

I guess

Orla Smith

This is this is why I made a joke about this being the original Promising Young Woman.

Alex Heeney

Well, I read this article that this essay about the film that was written and like right after it was released, and it had this paragraph in it, that was about

Orla Smith

And it said in 40 years, there'll be a film called Promising Young Woman

Alex Heeney

No, but it had a paragraph in it that I felt like you could have just pulled and put in an essay about Promising Young Woman,

Orla Smith

But also, I mean, it depends on how... like people interpret movies badly all the time. And I really wouldn't as much as on the surface, it might seem that way, I think it's much more purposeful here the way that she uses sudden violence against men. But I also think you can interpret that moment, multiple ways. And I know, I can't remember exactly what Akerman said about that. And oh, yeah, I like what you said, Lindsay, she said that it was this idea of like her wanting to keep things as they were by killing the man, which is not what I thought at all. And I know Alex, you said to me that we all complain, it was it It wasn't, it didn't like it didn't feel realistic, like it would happen. And I really feel like to me, it worked. Because I feel that moment is a metaphorical stand in for something like she is character the whole time. The for the first half of the film is kind of like during this routine. And then the rhythm of the film changes when the event in the center of the film happens. And then that whole second half of the film, like her pieces, almost quickening, like she's peels, those potatoes with, like, a lot of force, and she's sort of rushing then, and she's clearly off kilter. And the film is building a building to something, and you get a sense that like, is all of her sitting down thinking and she's sitting down and like having time to think about like her life for the first time because she's like, miscalculated her timings. And she doesn't know like, what to do with herself. Sure. And you said, you know, and so you sent her like, contemplating, and and I felt that whole time that she This is building towards her doing something drastic to change her life, and to change her routine. And to break out of that, and I thought what it would be would be her like writing to her, is it like a cousin or something in Canada and saying, like, I'm going to go there.

Brett Pardy

And that's, of course, why we're covering it.

Alex Heeney

Canadian film. So yeah. It could be something like that, it could be any number of things. Yeah, the argument makes it less concrete by having it be this sort of what I see as a metaphorical gesture of she murders a man, because the whole film was about her being in completely in control of her actions. And this is one completely impulsive, like out of control action. And then at the end, we see her in like, there's a long take of her sitting there kind of taking what she's done, covered in blood. And it felt like this moment of that was a very dangerous thing to do, just like uprooting her life would be a very dangerous thing to do. And now, like her life is gonna change. But also that could end horribly. Like it's a, it's having it be a murder emphasizes how like dangerous, at least to her, the idea of changing her routine would be, and it seems like this great unknown. So that, to me, is why that moment works. And it's less of like, literally like, let's, you know,

yeah, you're kind of misrepresenting what I said.

Orla Smith

I mean, I'm not really saying what you said, because I haven't heard your point yet. But I was just sort of like, I wasn't really arguing against you. I was just stating my point.

Alex Heeney

Well, so I don't disagree with what you're saying. I just, I think that the murder is one of the things that to me stands out most is this is a movie made in the 1970s. And this is a movie that was made by a 25 year old because it's so obviously meant to provoke. You know, I mean, all the things that you said, I guess it's just that I don't mind being provoked by I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being provoked. But it's such a subtle film, that to me, it kind of feels like it's betraying what it was doing by going, Oh, now we're gonna have murder because any small change in her routine is enough to be groundbreaking. And I think to some degree, it might have been more powerful. If If you know, the end result had been something more subtle, but that because we spent all this time with her. It's like profound now I get what you're saying, I don't disagree with you. And I think it only really makes sense to me as a metaphorical murderer. And Akerman has said that she sees the sex work as metaphorical rather than like real, but like, okay, I didn't take it that way. And, like, I don't disagree. It's just I kind of, yeah, I think I mean, we had this question of like, what would be different about the film if it were made today, and I feel like the murder wouldn't be necessary, because we would understand that, like, this isn't the first time that we're like, oh, my god, women, they do all this, like, you know, thankless work, and it's rough and like the patriarchy and oh, my god an orgasm.

Orla Smith

I mean, I see. I see. I see what you mean. But I disagree with the idea that it would be different today because

Alex Heeney

Promising Young Woman exists, I get that.

Orla Smith

Well, yeah. And lots of films like that exist. Like there's like a very big spate of films now that are like we're feminist if woman kills men So I think it's not a time thing.

Brett Pardy

I mean, I don't think Jeanne Dielman is quite during this is feminist fabulous, because there's uder

Orla Smith

no, no, no, I think so I think it's like the murder is about a completely different thing than like killing men.

Alex Heeney

Yeah, I just think that she's such a subtle filmmaker, that maybe she would have been allowed to have more subtlety how she made it today. And then if she made it in the 70s, where you almost have to explain yourself,

Brett Pardy

or maybe if she didn't make it when she was 25

Lindsay Pugh

exactly

Orla Smith

I think that's more the changing factor. Yeah.

Lindsay Pugh

I'm somewhere in the middle.

Brett Pardy

I mean, I'm sure I'm sure male critics love that.

Lindsay Pugh

I think it's definitely a 25 year old impulse to have a moment of like, where the switch flips and it's like in Big Little Lies, where all the women scream, it's like the equivalent of that, like some sort of release that when you're young and pissed off, you need to express in that way, but I think the Akerman of like No Home Movie, would she have gone with this ending? I don't think so at all, it would have been something like way vaguer than this

Alex Heeney

Been more like The Assistant

Brett Pardy

And artists were more to Freud in the 70s

Alex Heeney

Oh my god, there's like so much Freud stuff in her films. So we're gonna move on now to Les Rendez-vous D'Anna.

Orla Smith

So Les Rendez-vous D'Anna or in its English title, the Meetings of Anna is semi autobiographical tale fragment, as we have talked about, but again, as we've talked about, and as I've been made fun of for her, all of her films are semi autobiographical. It's sort of inspired by her feelings of loneliness and dislocation when she was promoting her films at film festivals in the film, and are played by a Aurore Clement goes from Cologne to Brussels, and briefly back to her home in Paris. Along the way, she has conversations with strangers and old friends, many of whom seem to talk at her rather than to her sandwiched in the middle is when she is briefly reunited with her mother after three years in Brussels and the to spend the night talking in a hotel room that's asked the question of, why do we like this phone, Lindsay, take it away.

Lindsay Pugh

I like this film, because it touches on all the topics I'm most interested in, in filmmaking, like loneliness and ability to connect the feeling of not really knowing if what you're doing with your life is making you happy. It has all of those things. And it is very sad. Definitely. It's it's a sadder film than Jeanne Dielman. But I think it's sad, but you will be thinking about it for a while. And it's not just sad for sads sake. And there's also this relationship she has with her mother that is interesting that you get sort of an extended scene of and that scene is kind of the one bright spot in this film, where you sort of see her actually have a connection with someone and share something of her life with someone and that's sort of the heart of the film. And I think that that sort of gets at Akerman as a filmmaker and that's something that you see across Her other films as well, there will be these bleak moments, but there's always sort of a bright spot with the mother in there somewhere.

Alex Heeney

Yeah, I don't know. I I really like it though. I struggle with Akerman's sort of Bressonian obsession with characters and acting, and I really don't like the acting style. And the way that people sort of monologue in a way I like Jeanne Dielman better because there's less dialogue. And I think the dialogue is the worst part of it. But I also I mean, just like we were saying with john dieleman. I feel like I see echoes of so many films that I love in Les Rendez-vous D'Anna, that like, they probably were heavily inspired by them, whether that's like, Oslo, August 31, except people have more connecting sort of conversations or like conversations with other women, which we also mentioned

Brett Pardy

I can't believe you mentioned Oslo, August 31

Alex Heeney

or Conversations with Other Women where they're like, you know, that scene and Conversations with Other Women when he she's in the shower, and he's like, pouring his heart out to her and she doesn't hear him and like kind of reminded me of the scene in the hotel with her sort of ex lover while she's taking a bath and he's on the bed and talking to her and she doesn't hear him anyway. I feel like

Orla Smith

I assume, Alex that you wrote Nuit #1.

Alex Heeney

Yeah,I thought of that, too, a lot, which we talked about on our episode on Anne Emond's films. This was her first one where these two people have this like one night stand, and they both monologue at each other. And neither of them listens to each other. And like kind of struggle with that approach. Because I just like I come to cinema to watch people connect, even if it's watching them fail to connect as they're connecting. So the idea of this film is sort of you know, people are always side by side they never look at each other like I don't I'm mixed on whether the payoff of then seeing her in bed with her mother and there's so much like warmth and intimacy and in the same framing, which then contrasts with like all of her other conversations like, I don't know, does it pay off? Yes, I don't know, I have like mixed feelings about some of these things. But that I think the way that Akerman shoots spaces and the way that Anna moves through spaces and all of these sort of like liminal spaces of hallways and train stations and hotels and cafes, and the fact that we never go to anybody's homes, like even she visits her mother and they stay in a hotel, she visits her ex lover, and they go to a hotel instead of to his apartment. And that sort of sense of dislocation is really interesting. And then I also feel like it was an interesting film to watch like just on that, because we just recorded our episode on spinster less than a week ago. And it was interesting to watch after that, because like, here's a film about a woman who is without children. And she actually talks about, like, the abortions that she had, and where she's being told by so many people like, oh, you should have children and get married, and that'll make you happy. And she's like, Yeah, I don't think so. But it's sort of amplified even more because of the, you know, Jewish diaspora in the post Holocaust, especially, as a daughter of like a Holocaust survivor, that, you know, motherhood has this extra connotation, which we'll probably talk about in more depth, but as this extra connotation when you are like a Jew, generally, but especially a Jew of descent of Holocaust survivors, that it's like your responsibility to repopulate the lost 6 million Jews. And what does that mean, if you don't want children, if you're a queer woman, and that's like, I think that's kind of an interesting point, too. And the fact that, you know, we see all these trains, and it's sort of interesting that, you know, to think about the way that the network that's allowing her to have this kind of roaming about itinerant lifestyle where she has these fleeting connections, or lack thereof is also the network or infrastructure that, you know, allowed the Holocaust to happen in the, you know, it's it's like, not that watching this. If you if you'd watch this at the time, the immediate thought would be like, oh, deportations, but I think in the, if you know more about Akerman'ss work, it's really hard to watch a film with all of these trains without thinking about that. So I don't know, I think it's really complex. It's very hard to nail down. It just made me think about a lot of things.

Brett Pardy

I really liked the loneliness and the fact then there's all these people are lonely, but like they're completely incapable of kind of having empathy for others. For the other person that they just feel like, I really just want someone to listen to me. I don't want to listen to them. I just want someone to listen to me. And I'm going to,

Alex Heeney

especially the Aryan, man,

Brett Pardy

Oh, yeah, the guy is like my wife left me and then he starts getting racist about it.

Alex Heeney

He gives the whole German history and what happened to his family?

Orla Smith

He mansplains World War Two?

Brett Pardy

Yes. He just keeps going on and on every line getting word. Yeah. So I'm assuming that like, accurate as directors probably a pretty like empathetic person on some level. And often those people kind of attract people that just want them, like, just want people to like, listen to them, but have no interest in Yeah. And so it creates this like, yeah, you know, a lot of people but they don't want to give you anything they just want to take

Orla Smith

Sorry. Figuring out like we know Joanna Hogg was very influenced by Akerman. And I do think about like The Souvenir a little bit about how, like, the film is a film about a filmmaker. And it's interesting to watch in that context, because it's a film about her. She's, we don't really learn any much about Anna, no one ever asks her exactly. So she is this sort of like blank slate, perhaps even to herself, and she has all these interactions with people as she's standing there watching and like is, for example, in the first conversation with that the gentleman and a lot of his monologue is shot in just a shot of him with an out of the frame from her perspective, you're just shocked to almost forget that she's there. And she is really like the filmmaker in this situation. I see the film also as her sort of grappling with like, okay, I'm a filmmaker. People see me as someone they can tell their stories to and I'm, my purpose is sort of to like watch be a people watcher to watch people to tell the stories of what I see in the world. But then where does that leave me? Like, like, have I formed a personality? Like, do I know who I am? And we know that she went on to like, make films about herself as well. But I see this film as like, grappling with that. And I mean, I guess you didn't expect it to be like, as sad as it is, it's very, sort of, like, I really loved how the, I mean, the film just like perfectly captures like this feeling of like being lonely and dislocated, like even when you're around other people. And, but like I said, at least in Jeanne Dielman, there was like character development, whereas in this film, she never tries to, like, offer a solution to and his sadness, which is kind have nice in a way. Because, you know, I think a lot of films about like depression, for example are very intent on, like making sure the film like has to like end on an optimistic note, when you know that's not necessarily like how it always goes, especially with film taking place over such a short amount of time as long as something like comforting just in like how she accurately renders that experience that he doesn't need to like, say and then add it was fin.

Brett Pardy

The final scene where she's where she's like listening for messages and not wanting to respond to anyone is one of the more relatable things I've ever seen.

Lindsay Pugh

It's like her as an artist choosing to be in this profession that constantly takes her to different places and away from people and leaves her grappling to form meaningful connections because she's always somewhere else. And I think, yeah, for Akerman herself, that was her life, and she wasn't going to change it. She wasn't going to not be a filmmaker just so she could spend more time with her mother or forge meaningful romantic relationships or whatever. So I think that's that's like where a lot of the melancholy comes from. This is a trade off for another thing that I want.

Alex Heeney

I think also that like I mean, Orla, you were saying that she doesn't develop as a character. And I don't necessarily disagree, but I don't feel like the film feels like it doesn't go anywhere. Like I think there's no, like there's and it's not just that it's like, Okay, well, that was an interesting slice of life. I think there's maybe the development happens in the like, the character's relationship to her surroundings, and to her scenery. Like the first few people she meets with are not people that she knows very well. And our understanding of the character development. Yeah, maybe, that's a good especially after we see her mother. Like, you know, it's she goes from a one night stand to the last person she encounters as an ex lover. And in the middle of that there's her mother, who's, you know, she has the most intimate relationship with, but I think it's especially like the intimacy of the spaces, whether it's like she's going to, she's somewhere that she doesn't know, which is sort of my assumption, mostly about where her her screening is. And then she goes to places that have, you know, increasing meaning to her in a way, or related to home in a way like Brussels where she used to live in where her mother is. And then, you know, I think it's significant that the last space that she enters on the film is her home. And the thing that she's greeted with there is, by the way, here, the next cities, you're going to you're leaving in a couple days.

Orla Smith

But even her home is sort of bare.

Alex Heeney

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't think our home feels like a home. But that is her most intimate space in it. So it's a progression of moving from this anonymous hotel that she's checked into at the beginning to increasingly intimate spaces and relationships, even if they are, even if there's a disconnect in them like okay, like an ex lover is by nature, an intimate relationship, but there's, you know, a degree of lack of intimacy between them. But even think of like the the last shot is her lying in bed looking up. And that echoes the shot of her in the hotel room with her mother. Yeah, almost in the same position. And there she feels, she looks so much more comfortable and happy in a strange room that with this person that she loves than she does in her actual home. And it is like, like her mother is more like a home than her home. She's just so smart about spaces and spatial relationships and how people move through spaces that I guess that's part of why I struggle with the acting style. Because I mean, I think the scene with her mother in the hotel room is really remarkable. I'm like that made me teary eyed. And I still found the film moving. But I guess because No Home Movie was my introduction to Chantal Akmeran, I just feel like there's you know, even in the silences between Chantal and her mother, Nelly, there's still so much more life almost in that relationship. And in that film, then in these characters, in my opinion, which I recognize is not necessarily your opinions. And so I guess but on the other hand, I think that she does so many interesting things with sections aren't just very sort of torn about like, are how these methods should be used or are best used or I don't know.

Lindsay Pugh

I mean, I think it's an it's an uncomfortable place to be in this place where you feel like nobody is connected to each other and people are just talking at each other and there's just not really much that is given to you. But I think it also is like what makes you pay a lot of attention to that character and what they're doing and I think it forces perspective of looking for other things to give you clues to the meaning of the character or the interiority of the character. I feel like she's always using different things to force the viewer to be more observational. And whether that's good or bad? I don't know, I feel is kind is kind of preference maybe?

Alex Heeney

Yeah, I don't think it's bad. I just think I like it more in some of her films than others. But you know, whatever. That's just an opinion. Let's move on to comparisons between the two, shall we talk about the mother child relationship? So this is the Mother's Day podcast. So let's get into it, Lindsey?

Lindsay Pugh

Well, one thing I found interesting, and I, I can't remember where I was reading about this, but it was the relationship between Jeanne Dielman and her son, and how that relationship was sort of Jeanne perpetuating patriarchal ideals to her child, even though her husband is dead. And there's no man in the house, she's still upholding these various specific standards and these very specific behaviors, and she's also ingraining them in her son. And so this idea of generational patriarchal behavior, getting passed down. And I was thinking a little bit about how that comes off and Akerman's relationship with her mother. And I think we see it a little bit in No Home Movie, we definitely see it somewhat in News From Home. And that was something I hadn't really thought too much about before. I thought that that was sort of an interesting parallel. And I think to the fact that Akerman talks about how Jeanne Dielman has a love letter to her mother. And what does that mean, because that character is very complicated, and there's a repressed anger or violence in her. And I think that those are, those are kind of all ideas that come up in a lot of our men's films. But that may be our clearest here.

Orla Smith

Yeah, and I feel like it feels like a love letter to her mother, almost even just because again, talking about how like she chose to make a film, a three hour film at that about like this woman woman doing like the labor of upkeeping a household and also like, acknowledges, like the anger that might be pent up in that. And doing that. And like regarding that figure is important feels like a love letter in itself.

Lindsay Pugh

And I think mother daughter relationships are so complicated, and you can have so much respect for your mother. But you can also feel that the things she's doing are deeply patriarchal, and all the time and you wish that she could be different, but you understand why she can't. And I think that that all comes across really clearly to me and is very relatable.

Alex Heeney

Yeah, I think also her sort of extreme routines are like they would fall apart or they wouldn't exist if she didn't have a child because it's sort of the mentality of well, my job is to provide for and feed my child and if I didn't have a child, then why am I doing like, why is this my life? And that all of that repression is sort of like this internalized narrative about motherhood. She's like performing for her son almost like again, like when he's at school, she's like, setting the stage so everything's ready for him. So that everything seems like it's sort of yeah extremely well when he's there that he so he can come in and not even think about like how the table is set. When he comes home the food is made he almost doesn't even look up from like the book he's reading and he is he doesn't have to think about anything because she's gotten everything perfect for him. Well, I think also that these still frames where you're watching john go about her business especially this really stands out to me like in the in the kitchen or even like in the bathroom when you see her obsessively washing the tub after she takes her bath like who does that but it kind of feels almost like you're watching somebody it kind of turns these backstage domestic spaces into almost like a proscenium stage which shawntel which like the cameras then watching and so that does really play into that idea of like performing for her son like even if there's no audience like the audience becomes us the camera and Akerman by virtue of the fact that she's choosing these like repeated like because the cam like there are certain shots that get repeated throughout the film whether that's like the the hallway in the lobby of her building, there's like getting on the elevator, there's the way there's like two shots the cheese is in the kitchen, one that faces the the stove, and one that is from a right angle to that which faces the table. And it turns these into these sort of performance spaces even if there's like nobody but the camera to perform for.

Lindsay Pugh

This isn't really so much related to what you're talking about. But I was thinking about this earlier and we were talking about the son mother relationship in Anna, the conversation that she has with Ida, who is her ex fiance's mother, where they're talking about children. And she makes a comment of something like when your parents die and you don't have kids what is left, like what is left to keep you going. And that being just a really bleak thing. And it being you know, in Jeanne Dielman, her son is keeping her going, I guess. And for Akerman in real life. I mean, she wasn't, she wasn't partnered up, she didn't have kids. And I think it's just something I think about in light of her suicide, and in light of her work, this idea of her her not having children and what is there and that being an internalized concept that is hard to break away from even if you know that it's stupid, and not something that should rule your life.

Alex Heeney

And of course, I mean, I guess I said this before, but there's, there's those societal pressures on women, but even more so for Jewish women in the time when she was born.

Orla Smith

Yeah, I mean, we see the generational clash in the film very much. So like her kind of trying to like, as he said, You said up top, Alex, like, Jeanne Dielman is very static in her house. And her house has her whole world. And she fits into this more conventional idea of like femininity and being above that, and a housewife type figure. Whereas Anna, if, we see Jeanne as Chantal Akerman's mother and then Anna as Chantal Akerman is like pushing against that reacting against that. And the film does a really good job of showing how her like as this sort of nomadic figure, almost. And this more modern figure is reacting against the generation above her and their expectations, but still feel sort of like, smothered by those expectations. Yeah, I mean, that made me think a lot about mouthpiece to the whole idea, like how much of your identity is formed through a rebellion against what your mother was? Yeah. And I mean, it's interesting that Anna also does talk about how she, she wants children. There's that process of if you're rebelling against a generation above you of like, okay, I've done the rebelling now I need to work out like, actually, did I want any parts of that? And was the middle ground here to undo some of that rebellion?

Lindsay Pugh

I think it's, it's really depressing when you shrug off all these things that you don't think are going to make you happy? But then you're still not happy? And what is happiness anyway? And what is the point of all of this? I think that's kind of what makes Anna especially seem like such a bleak film.

Alex Heeney

Yeah. Because it doesn't have the answers for that, either. I mean, the other than, that's kind of interesting, like, because you're talking about her as this sort of more modern figure or like in rebellion against, oh, you're talking about her is like in rebellion against her mother. There's also this very classic sort of, like Jewish archetype to her in the sense that, you know, like Simon Schama talks about, you know, Jews as like the suitcase ready culture. And if you look at like Chagall's painting, there's all these paintings, there's all these images of the wandering Jew, you know, it's like, with a suitcase, and you have no home because of the constant pogroms and you know, etc. And so, like Anna, we see a travels light with the suitcase, and she's constantly moving around. And then the discussions also of the recession, like when that Aryan guy decides to give her a brief history of Germany, from the perspective of somebody who, for whom the Holocaust wasn't really real,

Brett Pardy

Yeah, he left out kind of a big part.

Alex Heeney

But the the mention of the recession, and also like her mother brings that, you know, like, what happened with the last big recession, we had the Holocaust, and there's almost like this sense of restlessness, like, I don't want to get too comfortable, because I gotta get my suitcase packed, if I'm going to survive as a Jew, which is, which, to me feels like a real legacy of having been part of that, you know, just her mother's history. And so that like, in a way this this restlessness that seems kind of in rebellion against her mother almost is also sort of like puts her back in this tradition of this cultural tradition of like, what it is to be Jewish and to not have a home or to feel comfortable at home and to always feel like a sort of outsider.

Lindsay Pugh

Yeah, it's like a self imposed, uprooting, that puts her in the same position as her mother. Yeah. And then that also takes her away from her mother. It's very complicated to figure out all the dynamics of what's happening there.

Alex Heeney

And you wonder if whether her mother is sort of like digging her heels into like, I'm going to live here and be settled as her own rebellion against being uprooted like while I'm going to put down roots, and I mean, like her early films especially seem to have this weird relationship with Jewishness, because if you hear her talk about them and you think about them, there's obviously it's not even in the text is that they're the characters are Jewish, but like these are not Jewish actors, there's like no, like, a lot of this is like you have to bring in your own understanding of Jewish does to understand, like, it's very sort of sub textual, like even if it's like vaguely in text, but you know, like Akerman was talking about Jeanne Dielman. And how, like when she was growing up, I guess her father's parents were, I assume more like Hasidic lived with them, or some more like Orthodox. And there were all these rituals that were part of, and like, she didn't say this, but if you if I'm going to read between the lines and add in, like, you know, the thing about like, super like Orthodox Jews, and is like they, you know, you have to like wash your hands, but there's like a blessing for like, every bloody thing you do, including waking up, and you have to wash your hands when you wake up. And there's like tons of rituals associated with everyday life. And part of that ritual is like in reaction to the the constant trauma of having your culture attacked over years and years and years and years of, you know, anti semitic persecution. And so she was saying she grew up with that stuff. And then when her grandparents died, it got like, sort of replaced by other like domestic rituals. So like, time was still marked, but it just wasn't done so in a religious way, but it had sort of replaced those rituals, and that that was something she was depicting in Jeanne Dielman

Brett Pardy

And it's not like Europe in the 1970s was particularly interested in talking about the Holocaust, either. That is was really kind of a thing where I'm trying to think how to phrase it, like it's something the became talked about a lot, I don't really think, really until like the 1980s that really there was like this kind of mainstream like artistic discussion about that. And a lot of Europe was kind of one of those things that, I'm not sure what a strong enoguh word is, but it's just that so many people that were complicit in it were still around that they just did not want to acknowledge it so I can see why she's kind of like smuggling and a lot of these ideas.

Alex Heeney

Well and it's like it's a big deal that she has that Aryon guy be like the Nazis were all killed. It's like, um, no, dude, like your dad was a probably a Nazi

Brett Pardy

Probably was a Nazi? He explictly was killed in Stalingrad.

Alex Heeney

Oh yeah, I though tthat was his grandfather.

Brett Pardy

Yeah, no. Oh, wow. That's that's quite unafraid that you were... He makes it sound like he died this heroic death.

Alex Heeney

that's something that Barbet Schroeder's film Amneisa does really well. And it's set in the 1990s. And about this, this like 20 something year old kid who, like discovers that his father or grandfather was like a guard, I think in one of the camps, I can't remember, I'm giving this as a bit of a spoiler, but it's sort of about how this kid is so shocked, because he thought the Holocaust was like over and there were no Nazis left. And then he discovers that there's just been decades of silence about the fact that like, his grandfather was a Nazi. And so it's like, really powerful to see that in Akerman's film, which, you know, is, as you say, like a real like, it's an early film to be dealing with that.

Brett Pardy

Yeah, like, I think, I think maybe like Marcel Ophuls' The Sorrow and The Pity in 1969 was kind of the first film that really got into the Holocaust and the remaining complicity in society. And like, it was like, people hated him for doing it. And he was treated as if he was like this agitator, just, you know, let the past be the past, move on

Orla Smith

Didn't Akerman make a documentary in the 80s that, where she interviewed like her mother and Holocaust survivors.

Lindsay Pugh

She did. It's called Dis-moi.

Alex Heeney

And wasn't that like, I can't remember what year that was, like. 1980.

Lindsay Pugh

I'm pretty sure was I think it was like 1980. It was like for I think it was like for French TV or something. It was like a commission thing. But that's like the most I think of her work. That's the most explicit work about the Holocaust, because she's interviewing women who survived the Holocaust. And they there's explicit or more explicit discussion about it,

Alex Heeney

Whereas in like No Home Movie, she really tries to get her mother to talk about it. And she does not

Lindsay Pugh

No. Like, they talk up to it. And there's always a stopping point. And there's like a start and an end. And they're both bookmarking the Holocaust. But she never explicitly asks either. Yeah, that's true. They just dance around it the entire time.

Alex Heeney

I think it's hard to ask those questions if, like, if it's been taboo to talk about it, and you've already always danced around it.

Lindsay Pugh

Oh, yeah. And I mean, she's probably she's probably asked her more explicitly in the past, but at that point in their relationship, I think it would be really hard.

Alex Heeney

Yeah. Should we talk about how the film's shoot spaces and interiors, exteriors, and lightness and darkness as you pointed out, Lindsey feel like the time of day and Jeanne Dielman is always so clear from the light in her apartment.

Orla Smith

Yeah, I mean, like is a basic thing to say but I really loved I mean, her style is inherent to her style of like long takes wide takes but I love that, like she shoots in a way that you can always see so much of the room and so much of like the environment around the characters, because yeah, and a lot of films they just isn't that sense of lace. And there's such a sense of place in her films because it's important to her that not only can you see like everything around the character, but you have time to like, observe it and read the image. Yeah, and I guess we've been talking so much about how these characters are so shaped by place. And her interest in shooting those places, I guess, like makes her uniquely able to tell stories about this where like, so many films, almost, you know, like places are anonymous, or, you know, it's like an upset handheld shaky close up. Low depth of field.

Alex Heeney

Yeah, it's like it completely ignores the social context in which these characters exist.

Brett Pardy

My favorite shot in Les Rendez-vous D'Anna is definitely when her and the son of the Nazi are at the hotel and their conversations getting increasingly dramatic and personal. And there's the clerk. And his expression never changes. He's just totally bored. As the conversation starts getting, like very melodramatic, it's so funny. It just emphasizes as this guy's job just has to not care. He's there for the hotel, and also contributes to the loneliness that you can be in public space, having this deeply personal conversation and the person behind does not care at all. He's heard that conversation dozens of times.

Alex Heeney

I guess that's also sort of that sort of like wry Jewish humor that you also kind of see in like Wiseman's films, like even if it's bleak, it's like, there's this kind of bizarre thing. It is very funny.

Brett Pardy

I don't know how to explain it. But yeah.

Orla Smith

It's like how when we were writing our Reichard book and watching the films multiple times, we realize that most of them were comedy.

Alex Heeney

I stand by that.

Orla Smith

Yeah. I mean, I love how the conversations are shot to like, again, I really like the how the first conversation is shot, where it is like just him set against the backdrop. And it's like, we hold on that shot for so long that we kind of forget that she's there. And a lot of them are a shot to kind of emphasize the one sided rest of the conversation. Like I think one of the conversations she has is on a on the train, like she's facing in a completely different direction from him, which obviously contrasts with the conversation with her mother, which does have that connection. And I also love how she has empty frames so often, where somebody is either walking out of a frame, and then it's empty, or the frame is empty. And then somebody walks into it. I feel like she does that to create suspense very well, in Jeanne Dielman especially.

Lindsay Pugh

She does a lot of things that are would maybe to me sound like terrible ideas on paper, but they work really well.

Orla Smith

Yeah,yeah. Because I mean, it is hard to kind of articulate why a film like Jeanne Dielman is so compulsively watchable, and other films that are like slow films that are long, like make me fall asleep instantly. But her images are interesting that like, there's detail in them. And there's so much detail and like the production design and the costumes and there's like the means on scene, like everything is like, you know, you need that time to read the image to kind of like, you know, look at every corner of it. And they are nice to look at.

Lindsay Pugh

Yeah the composition is always really pretty. And I think that's why she she says somewhere like that's why she has so many corridors, hallways, doorways, ability to close off a scene to change the lights to show the passing of time. I think all of that is really precisely done.

Alex Heeney

All right. Well, I guess that's the end of our discussion of our Mother's Day episode on Les Rendez-vous d'Anna and Jeanne Dielman. Orla mentioned that I wrote an essay on No Home Movie that's on the site, and we'll put a link to it in the show notes. And we have some other Akerman content coming soon. Featuring Lindsey Pugh on Akerman's nonfiction films in our next book, which will be announced soon. So stay tuned for that. That should be pretty exciting. Next week on the podcast.

Orla Smith

I don't like how it's written in our Google planning, the next week on the pod....

Alex Heeney

Next week on the podcast, we're gonna get out do our since we're all like, real depressing theme, this year, we had genocide and childhood sexual abuse and we figured time for AIDS.

Brett Pardy

This was one of our more uplifting episodes.

Alex Heeney

Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. Just a little bit of murder. Only one person dies.

Orla Smith

Yeah. And, uh, compared to last year's Mother's Day.

Alex Heeney

Yeah, exactly.

Brett Pardy

No mothers were harmed in this episode.

Alex Heeney

Well, yeah.

Orla Smith

I mean if we did No Home Movie that would have been more sad. But yeah, next week on the podcast AIDS on filmand TV. The inspiration was It's a Sin, earlier this year, and the desire to talk about that on the podcast, and other the I would like there's lots of films that we would be interested to compare it to that deal with AIDS. And we ended up spiraling out of control and monthly to finally released in the episode because it's quite an ambitious project where we were watching quite a few films, key films about AIDS from you know, reaching back to the 1990s to present day and looking at the history of AIDS on screen. So we're talking about 120 BPM, we're going to go through a classic example with Philadelphia, and see how things have changed. We're going to talk about How to Survive a Plague and bring in like some TV like, Looking, and Cucumber, anything else? I'm missing Alex, anything key?

Alex Heeney

I mean, we're going to talk about basically stuff how AIDS has been depicted throughout the years in the UK, France, the US and a bit of Australia with Holding the Man

Orla Smith

And our guesy?

Alex Heeney

And our guest. This is very exciting. First time podcast guest but longtime friend of seven throw Dr. Emily Garside, who did her PhD in AIDS stories, specifically looking at Angels in America and other stories about AIDS on stage. So we're really excited to have like, be expert on this. We may touch on Angels,

Orla Smith

Angels in America.

Alex Heeney

Yeah. But we all agreed that this was a big project that could not be part of like you just cannot deal with Angels and deal with all these other things. So coming up in the future, we're going to tackle AIDS with Dr... sorry, not AIDS. We're going to tackle Angels in America with Dr. Angels in America. Emily Garside.

Orla Smith

Yeah, I'm very excited about that episode with the Angels in America also is going to be like, we're gonna we're going along for the days of watching three hour Jeanne Dielman when Angels in America like oh, like six hours of it?

Alex Heeney

Yeah. It's more a feat. The play is even more. So don't leave that all to one week, because you won't get through all of it. Cause it's also like, emotionally intense. And although we're going to touch on Looking in this episode, like as we may have ascertained, we are big Andrew Haighgue fans. So in June, we're going to do Pride Month and one of those episodes will be on Looking and one will be on Angels in America.

Orla Smith

So yeah, and then the other three are mysteries.

Alex Heeney

Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, Lindsey where can people find you?

Lindsay Pugh

You can find me at WomanInRevolt.com or @WomanInRevolt on social media platforms

Alex Heeney

I think by then you'll have your Grace Glowicki profile up maybe?

Lindsay Pugh

I should. Yeah, I hope to get my interview. Well, I hope to work on it this weekend, depending on how I feel tomorrow.

Alex Heeney

Do you want to give us like a brief like 30 second summary of what that profile is? People should look out for?

Lindsay Pugh

So it's an interview with Grace Glowicki about her film Tito, which is from 2019. I think it premiered at South by Southwest and just got nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, for best first feature. So the film is I don't even know how I would describe it to you honestly. It's just it's about this character named Tito played by Grace who sort of has like massive anxiety issues and problems leaving the house and things sort of change for him when one of his neighbors infiltrates his space and forges kind of a toxic, weird relationship.

Alex Heeney

It's kind of Gothic and Tito's like hunched.

Lindsay Pugh

Yes.

Orla Smith

It starts out like a horror film and then randomly to unexpectedly turns into a comedy. And it's very,

Lindsay Pugh

Yeah, but it's it's an interesting experience that will make you feel things and it's short. It's only 70 minutes.

Orla Smith

And yeah, and she's a very, I mean, she has a very physical performance in the film, and it's, she's a very interesting performer.

Alex Heeney

So yeah, watch out for that on the site. We'll put a link to it.

Orla Smith

We also have more Canadian Screen Award control. Yeah. Yeah, I as we recording this just put up my Stephanie Anne Weber Biron interviews are cinematographer of Nadia, Butterfly and Spinster. And she shot some of Xavier Dolan's past films, and she was super interesting. And she was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for cinematography for Nadia, Butterfly. So yeah, they did a sort of profile of her and that was really fascinating

Alex Heeney

Which we'll cover someday on the podcast when we figure out what to pair it with.

Orla Smith

And when it comes out

Alex Heeney

yeah, when you want to get that strategy when it's available outside of Canada and France. Orla, where can people find you?

Orla Smith

People can find me @orlamango on Twitter. You can find my writing at Seventh Row and The Film Stage other places and you can find me next week on the podcast talking about AIDS on film.

Alex Heeney

And Brett where can people find you?

Brett Pardy

I am on twitter @antiqueiPod.

Alex Heeney

And I'm Alex you can find me on Twitter @bwestcineaste and of course on seventh-row and you can find all of us @SeventhRow on Twitter and Instagram. You can check out our work at seventh-row.com and we would love it if you would write to us, shoot us an email give us your thoughts at contact@seventh-row.com. Or leave us a review that would also make our day/week/month. Thanks for listening. That's all for this episode of the seventh row podcast. Tune in next week for our next episode with more in depth discussion and comparison of great films. If you liked this episode, please rate and review us on iTunes or wherever find high quality podcasts are available. And check out our website seventh-row.com where you can find interviews and essays on the best current releases with a particular focus on films by about women, Canadians, young people and LGBTQ+ people. You can also find out more about and purchase our ebooks and merchandise on our website. I'm Alex Heeney from all of us at Seventh Row. Thanks for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai