Chantal Akerman: Four Films

This set serves as a fitting tribute to the memory of idiosyncratic but influential Belgian-born filmmaker Chantal Akerman (1950-2015). Akerman is best known for Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, her minutely observed 1975 study of the daily routine of a single mother and sex worker, but in addition to her fiction films she also made numerous documentaries, four of which are collected here. From the East (1993) records a journey that Akerman took into post-Communist Eastern Europe and Russia, while South (1999) focuses on Jasper, TX, where a black man named James Byrd was killed in a particularly gruesome fashion, and From the Other Side (2002) contrasts the attitudes of Mexicans trying to cross the Arizona border with those of locals who are determined to stop them. All share features that are typical of Akerman's style: a lack of narration, a penchant for long tracking shots from the windows of cars (traveling along Moscow streets, or the route over which Byrd was dragged to his death, or near the Mexican-American border), and interviews in which speakers are isolated in static single shots. The fourth film, Down There (2006), is markedly different, mostly consisting of footage taken from the windows of an apartment that Akerman rented during a stay in Tel Aviv (although there are occasional scenes on a nearby beach), to which are added her own musings on her life and beliefs. All of Akerman's films demand patience and attention; these four are no exception, but while often painstakingly slow, they also can exert an almost hypnotic pull. Extras include Chantal Akerman, From Here, a 2010 interview with the director by Gustavo Beck and Leonardo Luiz Ferreira, and a booklet. A fine introduction to the documentary work of an important alternative filmmaker, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)