Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Art house at its most annoying. This could be a novel idea, but at 200 minutes it becomes an endurance more than cinematic nourishment. Despite topping the recent Sight and Sound list, I am puzzled by its sudden jump to the #1 spot overlapping several films, Jeanne Dielman has nothing educational about it. You don't even learn that much about Jeanne herself. This will teach you nothing about cinema as an art form besides your personal tolerance for boredom. For me, and I imagine the majority of watchers, that was at the end of the first day.

It's tough to express my feelings without feeling like an anti-snob, because I do think the opinion of critics is losing harmony with the moviegoing public and that is an indictment, people who've dedicated their lives to films being disregarded because they didn't like the corpo nostalgia slunk like Mario or FNAF, is more annoying than people who swear by Rotten Tomatoes like it's the bible. I think what experts in the film world see to be the paramount examples of the medium is an important voice and should be maintained. But I'm not a zombie, I have a mind on its wavelength and I know my synapses well enough by this point to know when something isn't clicking. There was no point during this watchalong that all the pieces fit together, no eureka moment, because once you pick up on the rudimentary structure, you've caught onto Ackerman's gambit, even as quickly as ten minutes. You know what the point is, and even if that means the ultimate climax is still a swerve narratively, there had to be more compelling or at least cinematically-inspired methods to get there. If this has to be 200 minutes then fine - but does the camera have to be perfectly static all the time? Does every line reading from the characters have to sound like they've been awake sixty hours and have strepsils stuck in their throat? I do admire in parts how committed this whole project was to opposing convention, being so anti-movie that even when you get your lickety-split 70s nude shot, it means nothing because it's just as plain and realist as everything else. Boring films exist in abundance, and it's no crime if you make one incidentally and audience members can't feel too duped if it seems like the filmmakers accidentally made a cure to insomnia. But when you're as driven as Jeanne Dielman is in being dull, purpose be damned, it's hard to come with a pragmatic attitude besides that the film hates you. If I paid money or had traveled outside my bedroom comfort to see this, I may have just hated it back.

I can understand how the Sight & Sound Poll might have ranked this film on the Top of their list. Given the rules, I can see how many critics would have this film in their Top Ten. After all, every list needs an outlier, a film to cleanse the palette amongst the many genre films synonymous with this list, and JD may rise to the top in that category. When the votes are counted, this film may well be included in the majority of the ballots.

It's interesting in that JD is only one of two or three film on the list not categorized as ENTERTAINMENT, in its broadest sense. It is a philosophical piece, an art piece through and through, and it is presented very well, focusing on the external life of a woman, a mother, a widow, a prostitute, through a series of vignettes and makes no attempt to capture the internal life of the main character . In the age of social media, this film is an antidote to the INSTAGRAM/TIKTOK/FACEBOOK mindset of today. After viewing JD, I felt not so bad, in comparison, about my own life, even optimistic. In fact, I felt a sort of kinship with her watching her complete the most mundane tasks of daily living without a need for heightened emotion or personal drama. JD, of course, is not the greatest film ever made, but it may certainly be the best example of why films, like people, should not be ranked as if they were always in competition. This film, and many others like it, stands alone. (if that makes any sense).

You've formed some habits over years of being alone, transactions that take you, towards the gloam, characteristic of your standing, excepting afternoon transplanting, it's as rigid and as set, as a millstone. A subtle change seems to upset the fine-tuned balance, it's got you searching inwardly, looking askance, the equilibrium disturbed, there are things need to be curbed, it's got you wandering around, locked in a trance.

After 30 minutes of uncomfortable fidget I started to become tuned into the monotony of Jeanne's existence and only subsequently struggled with the final half hour, although the ending perked me up. If nothing else this film has the power to get you thinking of your insignificance and, possibly, the chance of you doing something about it.

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.

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.