REVIEW: Influential filmmaker Chantal Akerman subject of new documentary
Chantal Akerman was a remarkably talented and influential filmmaker, someone who redefined cinema and offered several important talking points over her multi-decade career. Her work is being posthumously celebrated this month by Film Forum and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
At the Film Forum in downtown Manhattan, her most famous work, Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, plays through Thursday, April 7, while a new documentary, I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman continues until Tuesday, April 5.
In I Don’t Belong Anywhere, director Marianne Lambert interviews Akerman about her life and legacy, with a special interest in the topics she focused on in her work, how she framed certain iconic shots and her connections to the cities of New York, Paris and Brussels. The film is a laudatory, 67-minute explanation of Akerman’s power as a filmmaker. Through taped conversations and footage from her many films, including Jeanne Dielman, Lambert is able to place the filmmaker in an important cinematic context.
There is a slight problem with the documentary, and that’s because Akerman remains an enigma throughout the entire piece. Even though there’s access to the influential director and her many films, not much is learned about her filmmaking process and decision making. There are a few scenes in which Akerman explains her muse and choice, but more often, the documentary jumps from movie clip to movie clip without takin time to explain each one.
Perhaps that’s one of the chief qualities of Akerman and her work: She remains avant garde, yet positively profound and daring in her approach to cinema. So, although the viewer doesn’t learn much on the technical side from I Don’t Belong Anywhere, there’s still much learned about Akerman’s personality, worldview and sentiments on life.
Her infamous tracking shots, which seem to travel forever, are discussed, especially the haunting sequence from Sud, her film on the American South. Akerman places the camera in the back of a moving vehicle as it slowly travels down a paved road whose history is made known by several circles painted by police officers. The reality of what those circles signify is horrifying, and Akerman’s lens perfectly captures the emotion and gravity of the incident.
The audience learns that the director came of age in the years following World War II, and her family was personally affected by the horrors of that time period. This becomes an important part of her filmmaking, and she addresses the connections several times, including her decision to make a film in Israel.
I Don’t Belong Anywhere certainly achieves its most basic goal: Viewers will finish the brief documentary wanting to explore the many projects that Akerman brought to life from the beginning of her career to her most recent film, No Home Movie, a documentary Akerman made about her mother.
Actually, it’s an explanation of No Home Movie that offers this documentary its most revealing scene. Akerman’s associate is sitting with her in one scene and explains the filmmaker’s decisions when shooting No Home Movie. Apparently, Akerman didn’t have a crew for the shoot and simply followed her mother around the family home. She would place a camera on a table or dresser, adjust the focus, frame the shot and make sure everything worked out in the end. Rather than editing out this “setup,” Akerman keeps the setting of the scene, allowing the viewer the chance to appreciate the final vision and the journey it took to arrive there.
She and her films will be missed.
Note: All screenings of I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman are free at the Film Forum, thanks to the Ostrovsky Family Fund.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
- I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman
- In French with English subtitles
- 2015
- Directed by Marianne Lambert
- Featuring Chantal Akerman
- Running time: 67 minutes
- Not Rated
- Rating:
