Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

I can safely say that I have never seen cinema like this before! Set out over a three-day period, we see widowed mother, Jeanne Dielman, go through her daily routine, many tasks played out in real time, the camera stubbornly static, and often, moreso earlier in the film, at waist-height looking upwards, so that Jeanne's head and shoulders frequently disappear out of shot. At first, watching these actions performed in full seems a touch unnerving - this is something that many people have carried out hundreds of times, but we have never before been forced to pay attention to the monotony of daily chores in such detail. However, holding these shots for so long draws the viewer in even further, making them concentrate on every action, so that when even the smallest cracks appear in Jeanne's monotonous routine, it appears to be almost earth shattering, just as the effect this has on Jeanne is equally momentous.

The wonderful Delphine Seyrig here plays Jeanne with an astonishing subtlety and restraint, almost emotionless throughout the three hours and twenty minutes of running time, yet it remains one of the most affecting, powerful performances that I have seen in cinema.

This movie is deliberately different, all in the service of telling us something we didn't know.

Movies are about movies. The borrow plot, character, lighting, sound editing and camera angles from what went before. Since "Birth of a Nation" introduced close-ups, cross cutting and cutaways in 1915 everyone has adopted that vocabulary for story telling. This movie throws all that out: The camera is fixed and stares at a scene for a very long time. Scenes had to be performed all the way through when they were filmed, because each was done in a single shot.

Movies use telescoping of time to compress the happenings of a long period into two hours. This movie tries to avoid that, depicting mundane tasks in their entirety. We watch Jeanne Dielman prepare a meatloaf, step by step, wash the dishes (her back is to us!), smooth the bed, or go shopping.

Movie use facial expressions to express feelings. Spoiler alert: When we get strong facial expressions from Jeanne Dielman there is a very good reason. And that only happens once in a three-hour, 21 minute film.

Movies use broad strokes to carry the audience along. Spiderman supplements explosions with 3D to keep me occupied. By contrast, this film uses subtle changes. You must watch closely to see what happens.

Most movies come to you. This movie requires you go to it. If there is dullness it is among those viewers who think that because they don't get something it's not there to get. There is plenty here but instead of being served to you it has to be harvested. And it is very fresh.

I watched this film forty years after it was made, in a theater in downtown New York City that plays only art films. Still, I was impressed by the audience's rapt attention over the 3 and 1/2 hours of the film. I too was sitting fascinated the entire time. We seemed to understand that a part of the experience of watching it was familiarizing ourselves with the details of the dignified Jeanne's existence. Every piece of furniture in her apartment is viewed over and over, and her daily routine is so minutely reviewed that it is imprinted in the mind; so, any tiny deviation jumps out as a sinister departure portending -- what? You wait worriedly to find out what it could mean. Mostly you feel a great sadness for someone who is clearly desperate to make ends meet financially, so she and her child will be okay. You see a perfectionist at work as she proceeds through the day, as though the great care she is taking shining and folding and washing will somehow result in safety for her and the child. There is a spirituality in this, and it begins to take hold of you, and you fervently hope for her survival.

Many scenes use one-point perspective a la Kubrick, and checkerboard floors to emphasize depth. The scenes especially in the kitchen are suggestive of Vermeer's domestic interiors. But maybe that's just me on a bit of a stretch.

Slice of life drama? If one wants to use the term. It is a strange aesthetic to portray monotony by boring the pants off of your audience. But 'portray' is perhaps the wrong word. It is a representation or a portrayal only insofar as it's a film. There is little mediation. A scene where Madame Dielman ascends to her floor in the elevator is given in real time. Why? The 'Odyssey' does not take 10 years to read.

The film would benefit from an extreme cut from its 3 hours and 22 minutes to something like 90 minutes to satisfy the connoisseurs. I would suggest more radical fast cutting, and the use of hip hop montage, to get the film down to a manageable short of 15 minutes or thereabouts. And then it would be fixed.

It is an excruciating watch. I watched it over three legs. I was curious. But its inaction is depressing and vexing. To resolve this bout of nothing the writer/director Chantal Akerman resorts to melodrama.

I find films like this very hard to rate. It is difficult to say anything new or astute about 'Jeanne Dielman.' Unbelievable as it sounds this film was well-received, and is, it seems, objectively significant in the history of cinema. In fact, it has recently been elevated to Sight & Sound's "greatest film of all time." The emperor's new clothes, anybody? Of course.

I think it is awful. So a two. No, actually on reflection, a one.

The ultimate tragedy of the film is that everyone you see through its lens is trapped in the 1970s.

The director was only 24 years old when this film was released and that's cool but obviously she lacked the skills of making a really good film. She made it easy for herself. The camera should not move, just stand there. This does not demand a skilled cinematographer. The actors should not talk, just do stuff like cooking food and reading. This does not demand good actors. It is not demanding to write the script either.

But we don't understand the film, right? If we understood it, we would acknowledge its greatness, right? No. We fully understand that the message the director wants to convey is that many women's lives suck and that they are fed up with society, life and being housewives and that men are to blame. They become depressed and crazy because of this. We do understand this. However, that political message in itself is not enough for a great movie.

How could this be ranked as number one on the Sight & Sound poll? It is sad. She was so young when she directed this film and you can tell by watching it! It is absolutely not the greatest film in the world. It is more like a typical film one would do if you lacked the resources to do something greater.

There are some clichés in the movie as well.

I give the film a 2-rating because I acknowledge some qualities. For example, the movie became pretty creepy in the end.