News from Home

Chantal Akerman is arguably the most important and interesting female director of her era, yet she is sadly under-known here in the U.S. The range of her work is astounding, from largely experimental 'difficult' works like this, to frothy musical-comedy, to dark, thoughtful dramas, and just about everything in between. I'm so glad Criterion is finally putting out much of her early work.

As for this film, it's an interesting experiment, if far from Akerman's most important.

It's all images of New York City, mostly still at first, with ever more movement as it goes along. The soundtrack is all letters to Ackerman from her mother in France being read aloud over the images. Odd as it sounds, it easily held my attention, though never really got emotionally involving. Once again, Akerman's city images are great, evoking Edward Hopper's paintings. But both the images and overall impact seem less powerful to me than Akerman's somewhat similar - and to my taste far better -- 'Hotel Monterey'.

However with this kind of experimental film, everyone is likely to react differently, and I'd urge you to see it for yourself.

Chantal Akerman was a young Belgian woman who had come to America to make movies. Unfortunately for her, she moved to New York City at a very low point in its history: the Summer of 1976. The Summer of Sam. The year of "Ford to City: Drop Dead." Graffiti everywhere. Burned out buildings. Garbage. Heat. Blackouts.

Chantal's camera records all this squalor in exquisite, non-judgmental long takes. You can almost smell the place. Somehow, the city arranges itself for her in fascinating compositions of color, personalities, and activities. What's that guy over there doing? What is that woman thinking about?

In counterpoint to the visuals, Chantal reads irritating letters from her beloved mother complaining that Chantel does not write frequently enough and When is she coming home? But how could she come home when there is such rich, baroque subject matter for her camera? We know that after her mother died several years later, Chantal committed suicide. The tension between her mother's letters and the power of the city is palpable.

Chantal has left us this gift of a precise record of a time and place that existed once and will not exist again. The final extremely long shot, taken evidently from the Staten Island ferry, is of Manhattan with its Twin Towers still present slowly receding and disappearing in the mist.

This is a seminal work by Akerman that re-examines the relationship between camera and voice - the documented and the personal, expressing the spirit of mid 1970s New York.

If you've ever wanted to just stand in front of a painting and stare at it, this is your chance. Or, alternately, like a whole gallery of your favorite artist for you spend an hour and a half studying their pieces.

"News From Home" gives you that chance. It isn't a movie for the average viewer, or even the average museum goer. It's introspective, spellbinding and gorgeous, given a chance. I loaned it to a friend and suggested he "let yourself go" while watching it, and he reported "it turned into magic once I let it flow through me."

If you want things that blow up, swear words, and sex, you are in the way wrong place sister. This is one of the best art films I have ever seen, without all that inaccesible interiority of so many other "art" film makers.

It's more like a personal documentary, which sounds impossible to pull off doesn't it? Well, Derek Jarman's "Blue" pales to this private gallery of scenery and emotion, which makes "News" far advanced, cuz "Blue" is my fave of his.

It's weird, but that's what makes it great. My mother said that I was born an observant, not a participant; and this film is proof. To be honest, I wouldn't classify this as a movie.

Almost two hours of a camera set up for symmetrical static shots, pan shots that range from 90 to 360 degrees, and track shots from moving transportation all while capturing the mundane comings and goings of the residents of New York City, as the director reads aloud handwritten letters from her mother.

If you make it through 15 minutes without turning it off, I salute you. If you make it 30 to 45 minutes, consider yourself a trouper of cinema. If you view News From Home in its entirety, you're serious about saturating yourself with moving pictures.

I watched 45 minutes and stopped. The next morning, I finished the film. I guess I'm not saturated yet.

Good luck.