Considering that I have yet to see a single one of her films, I have always been fascinated by Chantal Akerman. That Gorp adores her and mentions her every once in awhile does not explain it in full. From a country that has never been famous for making good movies (nor producing a good national soccer team till recently), I have always perceived Akerman as the odd one out in the film business, but in a good way. I have seen snippets of “Jeanne Dielman”, namely some of those infamous scenes in which she prepares food monotonously, and have simultaneously admired and feared her ways of filmmaking. Without seeing her films, I have followed her in the news and thought the film on her mother must be very interesting. When she died this year, I honestly felt shocked and told myself this would be a good opportunity to see one of her films.
Then, when writing my posting for “Top Hat”, I stumbled upon the theory that Isabelle’s defloration scene in “The Dreamers” is a reference to Chantal Akerman’s “J’ai faim, j’ai fraud”, and so I set out to see some of her short films.
J’ai faim, j’ai froid
Judging by how much these girls are eating within mere 12 minutes of screentime, you’d think this is a Korean short film. But platitudes aside, this is an amusing little film whose dialogue almost made me laugh out loud a few times, even though it wasn’t overly funny. These characters are a construct and the dialogue is a construct too, but by playing the fools in the kingdom and ignoring all social conventions, they show us how absurd the world is: They don’t pay for their food, they run away from home, they don’t care for any connection that sex and love could or should have. You’d think the natural consequence for them is to enter prostitution and a destitute life, but they sure don’t seem to care or even see it that way. These girls are perfectly fine the way they are, which I find reminiscent of Nouvelle Vague films.
Saute ma ville
It’s so obvious that this is an early film. I don’t think I have ever seen such a good, blatantly low budget film. It only has sound coming from the off, spoken by Chantal Akerman herself, and there is only one character, also herself. She could have made the movie with simply a camera, a sound recorder and her own apartment for all I know, like Cindy Sherman’s early works. (Who is not completely in awe of Cindy Sherman?) Technicalities aside, this is one heck of a weird movie. It feels weird, off, and annoying at times because, well, the protagonist is an annoying crazy person. But that is only one part of it. The message of the film is rather clear: This is a young woman breaking out from the constraints of her life by descending into madness, and as such she has all my sympathies.
Ultimately, I was less excited by “Saute ma ville” than I was for the utterly stylish and more lighthearted “J’ai faim, j’ai fraud”, but in retrospect I really liked the film, especially for its concept and its almost hilarious ending (in a black humor kind of way).