Hey,
This summer, I took a feminist film theory class at my local community college. Inspired by the films that I watched in the course, (have you seen Bound? Cause Bound is pretty amazing, just saying). I wanted to watch Akerman's 1974 film Je, tu, il, elle so like any broke college student, I headed down to my local library to grab a copy.
Here is a post regarding the film and I hope you take time to actually watch the film because it's worth the 85 minutes.
Watching a Chantal Akerman film is similar
to recalling a painful but necessary experience, such as an immunization shot
when one is a child. Perhaps growing up in narrative driven cinema with a clear
beginning, middle, and end is the cause for my fidgetiness when I struggle to
handle long static shots and little action. Akerman’s film is regarded as an example of hyperrealism, a term commonly placed upon her work. Her most well
known film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles demonstrates her talent in making the mundane
actions of the homemaker cinematic in its magnification.
In order to understand the effects
and affective domain of women in cinema, films such as Akerman’s must be
watched not once but over and over again. Her films stray from narrative
conventions and depend on actual cinema, simply put “moving pictures”. Since some
of the images of the film border on black and white stills, Je, tu, il, elle shakes us out of our comfortable
gaze of Hollywood films. Akerman plays Jules, the main character, who is shown
in several places and situations, connected to the overarching theme of human alienation
and separation. Examples of this are her interactions with herself isolated in
her small room with only a small used up mattress As well, as a truck driver
who speaks about his wife and expresses sexual frustration with a type of
philosophy that can be discovered in any pool hall dive.
Akerman’s
film is not supposed to entertain the masses, which explains the lack of
movement in the characters’ bodies. It is meant to be the fleeting images of a young
female trying to find connection with the outside world. In the first sequence,
Jules is speaking to the audience in a voiceover about someone in her small
cramped bedroom. She spends days writing her thoughts and feelings on paper
while stuffing her face full of sugar.
She only escapes the cramped space
of the room when she hitchhikes with a trucker driver and gives him the fleeting
pleasure of her hand in a cold and carnal sexual encounter. This results in a confession
to not only Jules but the audience as well. Some say that after climaxing
people are their true selves and the truck driver demonstrates this theory when
he confesses his longing for his daughter. While uncomfortable, it is the
daring truth and ugly honesty one is afraid to see that Akerman puts on film.
In the third and last act of the
film Jules meets with her girlfriend and after she eats her sandwiches, they
retreat to the bedroom to make love. In the tangled mess of legs and arms as
they push and pull, it seems more of a primal ritual rather than lovemaking.
When they stay still long enough, they are embraced in each other’s arms in a
sense of longing passion that seems to be as brief as Jules’ sexual encounter
with the truck driver. In the morning, she leaves her lover behind without any
evidence, disappearing from the thin air from which she first appeared.
In a film where Jules constantly
cannot stay in one place long enough, Akerman touches upon the note of uncertainty
in people in human desire. Sometimes it is the intimate moments of a
conversation one seeks and other times it is the touch of the skin that one
yearns for. Either way, Akerman understands that those wants and desires never
remain static for too long; one is always looking for the next event to occur. Alienation
is something that everyone must face and while some refuse to face it, Je, tu, il, elle embraces it as the
cycle of humanity.
*I'll be posting some images soon so stay tuned.
I would like to thank Moira Sullivan for her advice and support on this essay.
Much love and go watch a film!
XOXO
Erika
The Deer and Fox Club
