Watch-along – Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

directed by Chantal Akerman

Dear classics watchers,

Join me on Wednesday 14 May, at 8pm UK time, to watch and discuss Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which was voted the greatest film of all time by the BFI’s Sight and Sound critics’ poll in 2022.

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What is it?

Jeanne Dielman is a bleak vision of bourgeois ennui. A widowed housewife, Jeanne Dielman, lives on ‘Commerce Quay’ in Brussels. She spends her mornings cooking food and her afternoons having sex for money. The film is characterized by its extremely slow pace, long takes and static camera shots. It has been described as ‘a three-hour documentation of alienation’. It’s ‘a love film for my mother,’ said Akerman. ‘It gives recognition to that kind of woman.’