I, You, He, She

Not quite sure what this is supposed to be or mean. Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those who strive after meaning, allegories and new dimensions or need such things to get involved in a great film. Sadly Je, tu, il, elle did not strike me as a great film.

As a fan of long static shots I might not have had as big trouble as some others seems to have had. But the beauty of the imagery was minimal. And the lesbian love scene in contrast less grey felt not only dead but entirely inhuman and distant.

The 30 minute opening act was though it's many attempt of humor more or less dull. Her inner dialog struck me as somewhat silly rather than funny, interesting and deep. My interest grew during the second act, which is more dialog driven than the first and the last.

If anything this is a revolt against form. And I can in some sense appreciate it for this. Anything new or different will obviously create some interest and start some sparks. But Akerman did not manage to bring me in with this one.

Personally want to watch her 2022 BFI list topping masterpiece BUT I decided to start with her shorter debut film.

Je, Tu, Il, Elle tells a story of a woman under the verge of a nervous breakdown. She just had been broken up with. Unable to literally move, she begins a slow journey to healing. In between, she eats a pack of sugar, begin a handy relationship with a driver she'd hitchhiked with and ultimately returns to her former lover's embrace.

A very interesting film. I always hear about Akerman when I reading about top women directors. But She has always been elusive since reports about her works describe it as minimalistic, repetitive and still. Things I tend to have reservation, but this is a RESPECTED DIRECTOR in bold letters.

This film proves that acclaim.

Everything is such a choice but it works. Directing and acting in what seems to be a very introspective and highly personal work, with all the bared. Quirky yet smartly written narrative that is complimented by her marvellous camerawork,and lighting. Everything here just is in full gears. She was able to encapsulate the trapped feeling of being depressed in such a tight package without any preachiness. And for a slow cinema style, she knows when to shift gear and engage her audience.

I am very excited to watch her other works.

Overall, highly recommended.

I have to be honest, this was a damn tedious film. It may have been trying to communicate depression, the banality of real, unromanticized sex, or the banality of existence in general. It may have been trying to communicate a progression from loneliness, to meaningless sex with a man, to true passion with another woman. I don't know, but regardless, it does so in such a sterile, painfully slow way that it was tough for me to stay interested after the first 15 minutes, and it never got better. I'm all for the groundbreaking nature of putting a long lesbian sex scene on the screen in 1974 (especially the way it was shot), but mostly I just felt bored and manipulated by pretentiousness. Maybe this would have worked for me as a 15 minute short, but as it is, it was a real chore to finish.

Released in 1974 this experimental Belgian feature film from filmmaker Chantal Anne Akerman was shot in black and white and has 3 parts to it of approximately half an hour each. In the first segment a woman named Julie(Akerman) narrates her activities in a room over a number of days, as she paints and rearranges furniture in the room, moves her mattress around, writes letters, eats bags of sugar, and lounges naked on her mattress, as ambient sounds drift into the room from outside. We're not sure what we are watching here, with the narration sometimes being a little out of sync with the images, but in this little enclosed world many ideas spring to mind, including the boredom, isolation and entrapment of domestic chores and housework, something about the creative process (and ritual) of writing, the idea of mental health, drugs, and voyeurism. After 'being there's for a number of days, in the film's second segment Julie hitches a lift from a lorry driver(Niels Arestrup), stops at roadside cafes, gives the odd hand job, and has to listen to the lorry driver's life story in a long monologue. In segment three Julie visits her friend(Claire Wauthion) and makes love with her in a 12 minute long scene, with the two naked bodies often looking like they're wrestling with each other, before the climax, where her friend goes down on Julie. With her trademark still camera this film seems to say something about the director's relationship with men, women, the creative process, us the viewer(male and female), and herself.

Having been interested in avant-garde cinema for about 50 years, I could see myself with my friends back in college, parsing something like this. This was the time of an eight hour film of a man sleeping. Every hour or so he would turn over or readjust his pillow. I suppose this lays a foundation for a filmmaker to eventually break from this into something with some sense. This film about a girl who spends a week eating powdered sugar, painting her apartment, and moving her mattress around probably does something for someone. She also poses in the nude, inviting voyeurism, which, I suppose we can only guess at. The other two thirds of the film, a meeting with a blue collar worker to watch a gangster movie, and a lesbian love scene, hang on for what seems like hours. Anyway, I haven't anything to contribute other than the final love scene reminded me of a film about insects, where a wasp struggles with an insect of equal size, grasps him and stings him until he is dead. There is endless convulsing, short moments of relaxation and exhaustion, and, finally, the coup de grace.