Film

Who wants to see an avant-garde feminist masterpiece, other than feminists and the avant-garde? You should. Don’t be spooked by the daunting length, the formalist mise-en-scène, or the fact that great chunks of screen time are devoted to potato peeling and dish washing. Jeanne Dielman is immersion cinema, a brilliant example of maximal minimalism that fuses viewer with subject so profoundly, the marathon experience transcends simple spectatorship.

Two and a half days pass in the life of a Belgian widow (Seyrig), who methodically fixes meals, cleans the house, tends to her teenage son (Decorte), goes on errands—oh, and whores herself in the afternoons. Sure, the film’s cinematic strategies, gender agenda and postwar condemnation of petite bourgeoisie forever tether it to the Me Decade. But Jeanne Dielman is far more than a political screed; its statements about the human condition, about our fears and frailties and the veneer of convention over a cauldron of regret and self-denial, are as universal and timeless as Greek tragedy.

Jeanne Dielman plays like a slow-motion thriller. After all the stylized repetition of chores, a sudsy plate or a dropped knife is enough to chill the blood. Life is maintenance, and that maintenance is a form of both preservation and asphyxiation. It’s the menial tasks and ritual errands that shield the soul from existential crisis, but they can also form the wall that prevents emotional engagement. And Jeanne Dielman’s quiet desperation will speak volumes to every new generation—as long as they’re willing to watch.