You’ll never again make a meatloaf without thinking of this movie.
The surprise (and semi-controversial) big winner of the 2022 Sight & Sound poll of the greatest films of all time, pushing aside perennial top-spot denizens Citizen Kane and Vertigo, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman is a flat-out masterpiece, whether you think it’s the best movie ever made or not (fwiw, here at VTIFF, we have no objection).
Anchored by Delphine Seyrig’s remarkable title performance, the film is a minutely detailed chronicle of three days in the life of a Brussels housewife. Her routine is highly detailed and meticulously presented (the film’s 3.5-hour run time is integral to the experience). When little cracks start to appear in the final third of the film… it’s seismic.
Criterion calls the film “Chantal Akerman’s masterpiece, a mesmerizing study of stasis and containment, time and domestic anxiety. Stretching its title character’s daily household routine in long, stark takes, Akerman’s film simultaneously allows viewers to experience the materiality of cinema, its literal duration, and gives concrete meaning to a woman’s work. We watch, for three hours and twenty-one minutes, as Jeanne cooks, takes a bath, has dinner with her adolescent son, shops for groceries, and looks for a missing button.”
So Die Hard, it ain’t, but it’s a completely masterful film and a welcome addition to the upper rungs of the film canon.