Latest / The Next Reel Film Podcast / Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

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Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles · The Next Reel Film Podcast

• 0:05
  Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright.
• 0:06
  Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson.
• 0:07
  Pete Wright: Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends
• 0:10
  Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins.
• 0:13
  Pete Wright: Jeanne Dielman 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels is over.
• 0:18
  You shouldn't have worried. It's late. I'm turning out the light.
• 0:26
  Andy Nelson: So this is this is part of our series
• 0:29
  Pete Wright: Yeah.
• 0:30
  Andy Nelson: Celebrating films from 1975. Do you want me to say the name of the series again? I know you love hearing me say it.
• 0:36
  Pete Wright: I wanna try it. Golden Jubilee nineteen seventy fives. I've already lost it. Pioneering Visions in Global Cinema. It's literally written on
• 0:49
  Andy Nelson: the screen.
• 0:49
  Pete Wright: Pioneering Visions in Global Cinema. Outstanding. I nailed it. First try. Your series celebrating 50 year old movies.
• 1:01
  Andy Nelson: 50 years old. Yeah. Yeah. And as we go through this process of jumping back twenty five years each series, this is our third after '19 or 2025, February, and now we're at 1975. And we're looking at well, with member bonus episodes, we're gonna be looking at a few more.
• 1:19
  But it's an interesting chance to celebrate some films from 1975 that are now 50 and see how they hold up.
• 1:28
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Chantal Ackerman, you know, incredible visionary filmmaker. And I'm judging that by this film and the many many compliments she gets as a filmmaker. I have not seen very much of her catalog.
• 1:44
  Andy Nelson: Have you seen anything else of hers? Because I have not. I don't
• 1:47
  Pete Wright: think so. I don't think so. But she had, let's see, 52 credits less than if you count the few that were released about her, I guess, posthumously, died of suicide in 2015. Very sad. Buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris with, you know, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.
• 2:11
  So she she died in good company. Very, very sad. This was her second when this was an early film. I think it was her second film.
• 2:22
  Andy Nelson: Second film. Correct.
• 2:23
  Pete Wright: It's over three hours long, and it presents the life of this woman, Jean Bielman, who is a widowed housewife who maintains an extraordinarily rigid daily routine. She she cooks, she cleans, she shops, and engages in sex work to support herself and her teenage son, who we'll talk about. I don't I don't like him. I don't care for him. Not a good son.
• 2:51
  Not a good son. The the film is extraordinarily minimal. And I I told you, over the weekend while you were busy, I had written and left just unsent a number of comments for you in our back channel about the movie as I was watching it. And the first hour was made up of comments that were like, what, Andy? What did you make me watch?
• 3:17
  What are we doing right now? Why did you subject me to this movie? The second hour was, oh my god. Delphine Sehrig is extraordinary. And she is fraying at the seams in the most subtle way, this sort of deconstruction that I think I may have ever seen.
• 3:38
  And hour three continues that until the end, which was just an expletive that I was going to send you. I deleted all those because you hadn't watched the movie yet, and I didn't wanna spoil it. I don't remember a movie where I have started the movie regretting my time spent with it and ended the movie so, so grateful at having watched it quite that big a swing in a while. I can't remember. I mean, this this is one of those movies.
• 4:05
  I don't think I'm gonna watch it again, but I am extraordinarily grateful for having seen it.
• 4:12
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. It's a fascinating film. It's one that I had heard of. I remember when I first heard about it, it was probably around the time when Criterion first released it. And I just remember a lot of reviews of the time talking about this movie that is about a woman doing chores and housework.
• 4:31
  You know, this three hour long. And I was like, well, that doesn't sound like a very interesting movie. But it kept getting talked talked about. And then when Sight and Sound released their twenty twenty two polls of of critics and filmmakers, it was one of the ones that had had it had been continually climbing over the decades, and and finally, it hit the number one spot. And so I was like, okay.
• 4:57
  Well, I have to watch this thing. And it still took me until now to actually kind of sit down and and and work through it. But it's funny because, I mean, it's an example of slow cinema, and you already mentioned kind of that minimalist style, which is very much a part of slow cinema. And that's like slow cinema doesn't always have much of a narrative. There's a lot of long takes.
• 5:20
  It's very contemplative, observational, and that's definitely something that we get with Ackerman in in this film. And I was watching it, and I'm like, okay. This is kind of boring. Like like that first hour, you're watching it, and you're really like I mean, we're just we're on these long shots of her making dinner or Ten
• 5:47
  Pete Wright: minutes of peeling potatoes.
• 5:49
  Andy Nelson: Right. Like, we've got a lot of these long scenes where she's just doing a particular thing. But then, like, once I got into the groove and I I was, like, getting what the film was doing, it's like, sure. You can say it's boring, but I I I don't think it's boring so much as kind of exploring the boredom of the tedium of life that she's just going through the motions of doing these things. And I think it's kind of the point of the film.
• 6:24
  As we get to the build, you know, we're gonna be spoiling this. So if you haven't seen it, please watch it first and just know that it's long. You gotta get through it. But we you know, you you don't wanna get to the end and and having had us already discuss it. So watch it first.
• 6:41
  But it really does build, and it's so interesting the way that it does because it's all those little things that you start noticing. As you said, as she's fraying and you just see she forgets to turn a light off, and then we know she's really rigid about turning lights off. She accidentally drops a spoon while she's drying them. Like, we're seeing these things that are just showing, like, things aren't going as as normal.
• 7:07
  Pete Wright: Yeah. And that's the point. And I I just wanna emphasize your your point on, you know, getting spoiled for this movie because I think you're exactly right. I think I don't think the end were I don't think you could just jump to the last fifteen minutes of the movie and and get the feeling that I think Ackerman wants you to feel. Like, the I don't I don't think the movie works at all if you don't watch the whole thing.
• 7:33
  I think there is a a meditation, that slow burn meditation. There is that sort of joy and repetition that comes from watching her go through the course of these three days and sadness and boredom, all of those feelings that you would get if you were sitting in the corner of someone else's kitchen and just watching them do their work of the house. It really feels sort of that intimate so that when you reach the end of the movie, it is shocking. It is shocking because of the time you've spent, not because of the turn that it it makes explicitly. The turn that it makes explicitly at the end lasts for, you know, thirty five seconds, and and you realize it just changed the entire movie as a result of this character's journey.
• 8:19
  That's extraordinary. That's an extraordinary feeling.
• 8:21
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. I mean, it's it's such a break from what we had been going through, but you can see it felt inevitable in many ways. Like, we see just kind of how and you mentioned the performance of Delphine and how subtle everything is that she's bringing to the table, just like the little just the way that she's carrying reactions to things, responding to things, to her son, to her clients, to storekeepers, whoever the case may be. Like, there's just a lot that she carries. This is a masterpiece of subtext because, like, nothing is really said about anything.
• 9:08
  It's it's just, you know, talking about trying to find a particular button or whatever it is. Yet you can see that there is more going on inside her. And it is a fantastic performance that really allows for us to feel that with her so that by the time that that big shift happens at the end, that we're, like, right there, and it's just incredibly tense.
• 9:33
  Pete Wright: The film is really a case study in camera's observation. Right? Another piece of slow cinema, this idea that we're gonna remove expressive light lighting. We're gonna remove shot variation, and we're just going to exist in in sort of brutalist styling, brutalist cinematography. Everything's gonna be straight on, static, locked down, shots that hold for entire tasks, like peeling potatoes, making soup, straining things.
• 10:03
  Everything's boxy and and symmetrical, and it cuts off spaces that feel unnatural. It cuts off character heads when it just doesn't want you to look at them. All of that all of that exists in a way to put you in it. Right? To make you sort of by by the second hour, sort of day two of, disruption day, it makes you suffer along with Jean.
• 10:31
  And I think I I I I think she just she absolutely nails it. When she forgets to turn the burner on, I feel like my emotional balance is shattered right along with her. It's crazy how effective this is and how small it is for not having an overt narrative story.
• 10:52
  Andy Nelson: Right. Yeah. I mean, really, we're not getting anything. It's just a story of of Jean. Right?
• 10:57
  We're kind of watching her as she kind of goes through the motions of her day. It's I mean, it really is kind of just fascinating. And you mentioned kind of like the the way that the camera, the positions are, and that was something I found really interesting because not only do we have, like, these just static shots throughout the the film of the kitchen, and we do get variations periodically. Like, sometimes we get the kitchen from one direction. Sometimes it turns 90 degrees, and we're seeing a different direction.
• 11:27
  It really kind of depends on on the action. But it's interesting, like, when those shifts happen, like, at the dinner table, for example, where we may be looking at at Jean primarily, but then suddenly we have a new shot, and it's focused primarily on her son. And it's interesting to see how Chantel was deciding, like, when do I want a little more of that shift to focus on a particular character? And I thought that was interesting. Likewise, I found it interesting when the very first time when she and her son come out, like after dinner and then sitting for a minute, they go like a walk around the block.
• 12:07
  We see them come out of the elevator and down the hall and out to go walk in the streets. Very black night. That hallway from the mailboxes down to the elevator, you know, it's a it's a long hallway, but it's one that depth of field wise, like, that's an area she has chosen to not have a deep depth of field. It's very shallow. And so the focus in that hallway is the mailboxes.
• 12:39
  Always. And anytime whether they're they're leaving the building and walking out past the mailboxes or she's coming in and checking the mailboxes and going to the elevator, everything in the elevator is out of focus. It's just blurred, and we're just left staring at the at the mailboxes with kind of a blurry image behind. And that happens throughout where there are particular locations, and I don't know. It's funny.
• 13:07
  Chantel, for this particular film, she opted to hire an entire crew of women to work on this film with her. So it's all female crew, and she said later, it didn't work out that well, not because they were women, but because I didn't choose them. It was enough just to be a woman to work on my film, so the shooting was awful. And so I don't know. So I I can't speak to the fact, like, was that intentional, the depth of field, or was that like one of these, you know, crew members where they didn't get the f stops correct or they didn't light it well enough, and so they couldn't get enough, focus.
• 13:45
  I don't know. Fact of the matter is, though, this is what we have. And so it's just interesting that sometimes we have these moments where things aren't clearly in focus. And I just I wonder it makes me wonder, like, is there intentionality in that?
• 14:01
  Pete Wright: Yeah. It's I I'm I'm forced to reckon with my own kind of internal retroactive cinematography continuity, which is I really like what you described. And I feel like as watching it, what that does is it focuses on the point of action. And I'll I'll take that hallway scene as a great example. When I imagine myself walking down that hallway, everything in the foreground and in the background is irrelevant to the focal point, which is the mailbox.
• 14:33
  And I think this maybe flubbed f stop work actually works in favor of the activity at hand. Right? It's making us focus focus on the activity and reminding us that everything else is irrelevant. It just blurs into the rest of the day. I am very, very sure that I'm overthinking this, but I do like it.
• 14:56
  Right? Like, I don't think it I don't think it doesn't work. That double negative plays. It doesn't not play.
• 15:04
  Andy Nelson: It doesn't not play. Yeah. Well, that's I I think it's it's a fascinating glimpse into, you know, whether it was a mistake or not, something that ends up working for the scene. Because in some ways, there is this weight focused on the mail in the in the story. She knows a package is coming from her sister in Canada.
• 15:26
  Right? She knows it's on its way. And so, yeah, yeah, I don't she checks the the mailbox every time she passes it, getting the newspaper or whatever might be in there. And then finally, that package does arrive. It's on day three.
• 15:41
  It's right before that last client. When she looks at the gift, is there some thought that it's a real letdown that it's just kind of like a pink nighty? Like, was she expecting something fancier like that great coat that her son had received at one point six years ago that was too small and he's trying to wear it now, but it's missing a button. And she's, like, trying to find the button and everyone's like, oh, these are beautiful buttons. Like, that one seemed like it was a really nice coat, and here she just gets this 90.
• 16:11
  Is that like Yeah. And is that part of like, she had been kind of waiting for that? I mean, we had that focus on the mailbox as we just talked about. And is that one of the final elements that kind of pushes her over the line?
• 16:25
  Pete Wright: I see, that's exactly what plays so well for me in in sort of mapping the undoing of Jean. I think it's, I think it plays really well. I read an interesting commentary on the editing and and cinematography that that, in fact, all of these things we're talking about actually make for what they call ethical editing. Right? The idea is that Ackerman is insisting that you experience labor and routine exactly as Jean does with no shortcuts.
• 16:55
  Do you have you heard this this before in cinema? I've heard it in in journalism, ethical editing. It's a it's a big thing. But in this kind of filmmaking, is this a is this a trope you're familiar with?
• 17:07
  Andy Nelson: I mean, I've heard it in context of primarily, like, documentaries.
• 17:12
  Pete Wright: Yes.
• 17:13
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. You know? And the whole idea of and the idea of as soon as you cut, you're making a decision about what the audience gets to see. You know? But even so, like, do you just do you just put a camera somewhere and what it captures is the truth?
• 17:31
  But then at the same time, people argue, you chose to put the camera in that particular spot looking at that particular bit of information. So you're still making a cognizant decision as to what other people how other people are going to experience that reality. So there really isn't ever a way to fully provide something that is just free of some subjective point of view. Right?
• 17:59
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Right.
• 18:00
  Andy Nelson: And and so to a certain extent, I mean, yeah, I think the way that they're choosing to tell the story, I think, sure, ethical editing, I suppose you could say that. But at the same time, I think it's all still very much based on how Chantel wants us to be experiencing all of this all of these details and things that that Gene is going through. And so I don't know. Is it is it is there I don't know how ethics are completely involved in in those decisions. I just think it's it's very much just storytelling.
• 18:37
  And, you know, to some extent, like, the things that Chantel is choosing to not show us can also be affecting us. Like, she's very specifically like, anytime Jean has a a male customer come over and she goes into the bedroom, like, it just cuts to them leaving, and it's already over until the end. That's a choice. That's active choice. Yeah.
• 19:04
  That's a choice. And so is that ethical editing? Is is or is she by the fact that she's omitting the sex, but showing the the housework, is that just her playing on an inverse idea of what you would typically see in a movie or maybe through the male vision, you know, a male view, male gaze, as they say?
• 19:28
  Pete Wright: Well, it's interesting to to bring up that particular point because so much of this movie is about, you know, I I guess, capitalism and the body's capitalistic opportunity that that she monetizes sex to support her domestic life, that her body is as much a site of of labor as the kitchen. Right? Like, she I I think Ackerman is is ably putting all of these things on an even footing, and yet we don't see the kind of domestic performer she is in the bedroom. We see just a hint of it at the very end that she's she it is just as kind of workaday quotidian effort for her as peeling potatoes to just lie on the bed and let these customers, you know, do the job. And and I think it's an interesting choice not to show more of that.
• 20:31
  And I don't mean in an oversexualized view, but I think an undersexualized view of the kind of sex worker she is highlights more of the unsexiness of her daily life. And I think that's an interesting omission. And I mean, here's here's me saying, more sex in film. This kind of sex is not the sex I'm talking about normally.
• 20:56
  Andy Nelson: But, I mean, I think it all speaks to your point about the that ethical editing style. And so that's why I I struggle with it a little bit. You know? I I I buy into the concept to a certain extent. Like, sure.
• 21:09
  The mise en scene, just like having a shot, just show us what's going on, that's telling a certain truth. We're seeing it actually happen. That's how somebody goes about peeling potatoes to get ready for dinner. Like, we're seeing it in action. Yes.
• 21:22
  Now I I see. But, again, I still think there are decisions being made. So I don't think I don't know if we can ever get to a place where you can say it's truly is it truly ethical? It's just you're telling a story. You know?
• 21:38
  And even in a documentary, that's the thing. Like, the filmmaker is choosing to tell a story a certain way to get us to feel a particular way about the subject that they're exploring. Right. Right. Exactly.
• 21:49
  And and let's I mean, this
• 21:51
  Pete Wright: is a three hour and twenty two minute movie, and really each day is compressed to about an hour. Like Right. There's twenty three hours of choices being made in there for each one of the days that we're that we do get to see. So that's that stuff is important. Okay.
• 22:07
  Delphine Seyrig, I have you have you are are you a Seyrig head?
• 22:12
  Andy Nelson: I I've seen her in a few things. The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie and The Day of the Jackal.
• 22:20
  Pete Wright: Oh, right.
• 22:21
  Andy Nelson: Neither of which we've talked about. Right.
• 22:23
  Pete Wright: But I have seen that. Right? I love that.
• 22:25
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. Those are the only two thing other two things that I've seen of hers. But she's done a lot of things I've heard about, you know, with, like, Francois Truffaut's film, Stolen Kisses, Last Year at Marrying Bad, A Doll's House, Donkey Skin, India Song. There are a number of films that she's done that I've I've heard of that are on my watch list, films that I need to see but just haven't gotten around to. And I can't specifically recall her performances in either of the other films that I've seen, so I can't speak to that.
• 22:57
  But I I'll just say that here, I just was like like we've said, let's just like you just get pulled in to her internal thoughts and workings. And the littlest changes on her face, we just start noticing and are constantly like, oh, like, we're recognizing there are things, gears turning in her head thoughts that she's trying to figure out everything. It's it's fascinating.
• 23:22
  Pete Wright: I'm watching this movie, and it's hard not to watch it and think about Roma, right, which is an an interesting take again on domesticity, domestic work, but made much more beautifully. Right? It's a it's more of a celebration. But, Lalitia a Parisio in that movie is made to look much more, sort of, I'll say beautiful, but classically beautiful and honorable, I think, as and at no point do I get that from Jean Diehlmann. It's an interesting contrast.
• 24:01
  I think watching this movie and Roma and maybe Parasite as an effort to kind of look at cultural interpretations of domestic work in film would be a fascinating trilogy, like spiritual trilogy for me. I couldn't kind of get some of those sequences out of my out of my head. Right? When you're talking about identity and routine, what people are are forced to do to make a livelihood, the little tiny choices that we have to make every day to live life, alienation that comes in the form of physical spaces, right, that the apartment her apartment is a place of such capitalism and domesticity, a place of safety, but also ultimately a place where she's sort of suffocates and comes unwound. All three of these movies do similar things in a very different way.
• 24:57
  Andy Nelson: And interesting different family dynamics as well as far as the relation of the people in their lives.
• 25:03
  Pete Wright: For sure.
• 25:04
  Andy Nelson: And I thought thought that was actually quite interesting. She's pretty closed off. She never is overtly conversational. You know, she meets somebody in the street who they recognize they have a brief greeting, and then her friend is like, oh, you should come over sometime. And she's like, yeah, maybe maybe next week or I can't remember what she says, but something along that lines like, you know, this week, I'm I'm booked.
• 25:25
  My afternoons are full. Likewise, when the woman whose baby she cares for for brief periods, the first time that she comes to pick up her child, like, she is like a conversational lady, this woman who has the baby, and just keeps talking. And and Jean just stands in the door. Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:46
  Like, she's just ready to shut the door, but it's like waiting for this lady to stop talking. You know? She's just, I'm done, and I need to have my space back.
• 25:55
  Pete Wright: How effective was that, though? Like, I I wanted the woman to shut up. Yeah. Like, just watching and we never see the woman. Right?
• 26:02
  We we just watch Jean's reaction. And I am on team Jean. Shut up.
• 26:09
  Andy Nelson: Shut up. Take your baby and go away.
• 26:11
  Pete Wright: Take your baby and get out. I've got stuff to do.
• 26:15
  Andy Nelson: Which was so funny because the second time that she comes over, like, the baby is just screaming the whole time every time June tries to pick her up. And finally, she just puts puts her back in in the crib and goes to the other room, and the baby stops crying. And then the woman picks up and she's like, okay. Bye. And it's like, okay.
• 26:32
  Is it that that time was just clearly an opportunity for the baby to just really get on Jean's nerves, I think.
• 26:40
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Right.
• 26:41
  Andy Nelson: Right.
• 26:42
  Pete Wright: Well and and what incredible anxiety that was. I I thought I mean, I was edge of my seating at that point when the baby was crying and she picked up the baby. I was like, okay. Jean's already on the road to unraveling. Is this where the story starts?
• 26:55
  Like, is she gonna do something horrible to that baby? She didn't do anything horrible, but the anticipation of such a thing was enough for me to kind of remind me that I'm engaged in this movie and in a way that I didn't expect at that point. So.
• 27:10
  Andy Nelson: Right. Because that baby was also getting on my nerves just like the woman at the door. Shut up, baby. Yeah.
• 27:15
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Stop
• 27:16
  Andy Nelson: crying. God. It was just really, really obnoxious.
• 27:20
  Pete Wright: God. I was just praying for an edit. Just edit the crying out. We can do this is movie magic. You can make the baby stop crying anytime you want.
• 27:28
  No relief.
• 27:29
  Andy Nelson: Nope. Not at all. Let's talk about her relationship with her son, Sylvain. Jean is a widow. Her husband had died.
• 27:38
  Her husband, George, she still has the picture of, like, her wedding photo of her and George, by her bed and which perhaps plays a prominent role in what happens later. We can discuss that. But she has her son, and they are I I couldn't quite figure out, are they from Belgium, or did they move here? Because they're talking about their accents. They're talking about how her son decided to go to a Flemish school.
• 28:09
  So he's reading some books as if he's, like, trying to learn the right accent and everything. So I wasn't did you pick up on that as far as, you know, their where they're from?
• 28:19
  Pete Wright: I had the same assumption that they moved. But it's interesting because the address is Brussels.
• 28:24
  Andy Nelson: Well, they where they're living now is Brussels. Right. So so I wasn't that's why and they're talking accents. So I'm like, well or maybe they're just I mean, Brussels Belgium has, what, like, two Nash is it, like, Dutch and French? Yeah.
• 28:38
  Pete Wright: I think so.
• 28:39
  Andy Nelson: And then there's a lot of German spoken there too. So there's a there's a wide variety of language overlap, I think, in in people. But maybe they're just they're here, and she's like, that conversation is, like, after dad died, Sylvain just decided I wanna go to a Flemish school, and so now he's trying to learn Dutch. Maybe that's what maybe that's what it is here.
• 29:00
  Pete Wright: Yeah. At a certain point, that sort of color, that kind of tapestry in the film is just par for the course. Right? She's I didn't really question the fact that she felt that fish out of water. Like, that's that's the area of of this film where she's, she fills a a narrative trope, a character trope that I'm familiar with.
• 29:25
  She feels like an outsider. And to some degree, that outsiderness, that exteriority is manifest by the way she so rarely leaves her apartment or she so rarely takes us out of her apartment. You know, who knows what she's doing the other twenty three hours we don't see? But, you know, for us, it's a rarity to leave the apartment, and it's very practical. She's looking for buttons.
• 29:51
  She's looking for food. She goes home. Like, there's there's not a lot else going on.
• 29:56
  Andy Nelson: No. Yeah. It's just the few things that she has to get done. And some of them are specifically related to her son, like his he's decided he's wearing a particular pair of shoes that need to she needs to take to the cobbler to fix them a little bit. And so we see that happen.
• 30:13
  Pete Wright: Isn't that interesting that you bring up the cobbler, though? Like, I didn't I didn't connect this, but the cobbler had a level of familiarity that is out of character. Right? Like, the cobbler asked about Sylvain. The cobbler had interest.
• 30:28
  Like, it felt like, oh, we're a small town. We all know each other. And these are the shops, the cobbler, the candlestick maker. We all kind of are, familiar with each other. And now that we're talking all about how she's such an interior person, an internal person, Isn't it strange that the world seems to not respect that for her?
• 30:47
  Like, the world wants to engage with her in a way that she clearly does not.
• 30:51
  Andy Nelson: Well, it makes you wonder what her life was like when George was around. Were they much more social people? Like, or was she kind of the introvert and George was the extrovert, and she just kind of, like, was part of things because he was pulling her along. And now that he's gone, she's just like, I'm not ready to have all these conversations with these people who wanna talk to me because they know me for when George was around.
• 31:12
  Pete Wright: Oh, does that make you think at all what it would be like if you, god forbid, lost your wife like me too? Like, what would happen? What would I be if I didn't have my wife? I would be such a mess. I would be Jean Diehlman.
• 31:28
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. I know. I know. It's terrible. It really is.
• 31:32
  Yeah. Well and this is an interesting thing that I noticed. So she she takes the shoes to the cobbler, and they have yeah. He's very conversational and wants to know how Sylvain is doing and checking in and everything. It's Sylvain's shoes that she's fixing.
• 31:47
  Later, it's Sylvain's coat that she's trying to get rebuttoned. Then the next day when she comes or maybe it was two days later. Anyway, whenever she comes back to the cobbler's shop, it's closed. The the the gate is, like, mostly closed, and that's when she goes and stares at the kind of does some window shopping for a minute at the shop next door. Beautiful cinematography through that, just the way that the reflection Yeah.
• 32:13
  And then the cobbler opens his thing. She comes inside, gets her package of shoes and leaves. But the thing that I noticed in that is that his address next to his shop is the Number 23. The film is called Jean Diehlman 23, quite a comers 1080 Brussels, which makes me think that's her address. I mean, that's how it's written.
• 32:33
  It's like, this is Jean. This is her address. But how funny is it that the cobbler has, like, the same address? 23 Whatever Street. And I just it just, like, stuck in my mind because it's a bright red 23 written on the door right next to his shop.
• 32:49
  And it just is like, is there is that meant to imply that there's more of a connection between the two of them than that we're just not clear on? Is he a customer? Yeah. Right? Could he be?
• 33:03
  Wow.
• 33:05
  Pete Wright: Did that did not hit until just now. Well done, Andy. You'd see a movie and everybody's either a client or a prostitute.
• 33:18
  Andy Nelson: Oh, yeah.
• 33:19
  Pete Wright: Yeah. That that's really that's really fascinating. Like, that that becomes the language of how she relates to the world, that she's incapable of relating to the world in any way other than this sort of capitalistic way. He could also just be a friendly guy.
• 33:33
  Andy Nelson: Oh, yeah. He could totally just be friendly.
• 33:36
  Pete Wright: Telling you, I kinda prefer the client. I kinda prefer that.
• 33:39
  Andy Nelson: Well, she talked about when her son asks her. They were we need to get back to the son because I think it's such an interesting relationship. But he asks one night about, like, how did you meet dad? And, like, that whole story about how they met. And she talks about how she was working at, I can't remember, like a bookkeeper or something, but she was like getting terrible wages.
• 34:01
  And she met him, and he was making more money and things anyway, they ended up getting married. But it makes you wonder, like, after he dies, was she looking for work in those areas again, like, where she had been, where she was making terrible wages, or did she recognize, like, there's nothing there? Like, what pushed her into making the decision sex work? You know? Like, how did that how did that decision come?
• 34:30
  Or was it just a breaking point where she's just like, I have to make money to get food on the table again?
• 34:36
  Pete Wright: Well, it isn't an interesting that we never get a sense. Well, check me if I start lying, but I never get a sense that she wants for money. Right? This is not a movie about a woman in poverty struggling to make ends meet. Right?
• 34:52
  She's able to go to her little centerpiece and grab cash for Sylvain anytime he needs it. She's able to go look for buttons and buy buttons and take care of the shoes and buy groceries that she's so meticulous with. Like, this isn't an austerity case. Right? I mean
• 35:09
  Andy Nelson: Well, I mean, yes and no.
• 35:12
  Pete Wright: She was at one point. But where we meet her, it doesn't feel like she is.
• 35:18
  Andy Nelson: I I it's hard to say because she is very much Penny Pincher is the wrong
• 35:24
  Pete Wright: Frugal.
• 35:24
  Andy Nelson: Way to describe her, but she's very frugal. Like, she saves everything. Like, she saves wrapping. She saves like, she was legit trying to save the string that the package from Canada arrived in. She was trying to figure out how to untie it so she could save the string in case she needed it.
• 35:43
  And finally got so fed up, she couldn't untie it, so she just cut it off. But she was gonna save it.
• 35:49
  Pete Wright: But isn't that the case of any of any older people who lived through the depression even if they have money now?
• 35:56
  Andy Nelson: That's yeah. I mean, there is that. Yeah. There yeah. I mean, saving I mean, I grew up we were, you know, washing out baggies to to reuse because my mom was just like, we can't throw plastic away.
• 36:06
  That is, like, such a waste. But it's not like we needed to. It's just one of those things. And it's just like they grew up that way. You know?
• 36:14
  That's what I'm reading. Yeah. My mom still washes her baggies. I'm like, mom. Right.
• 36:19
  Seriously.
• 36:23
  Pete Wright: No judgment. No judgment about baggy washing. It's her thing. We wash a bag. We wash we're known to wash a baggy.
• 36:29
  I've been known to wash a baggy.
• 36:30
  Andy Nelson: Right. When the time is when the when the time is right. Yeah. Yeah. That's what
• 36:35
  Pete Wright: I get from Jean, that she is a like, where we meet her, she's in a place of fiscal recovery. Right? But she still has habits of when she needed more, and she's she has not turned the corner to realize that she has opportunity to live her life differently because she's so routinized. Right? She's so deeply engaged in her daily activity.
• 37:00
  And I think that's she's she makes her a really a much more interesting character than you would expect as a result of those things.
• 37:08
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's so more about Sylvain. Because Because the first time he comes over or he comes home, like, there is no talking.
• 37:21
  There's no greeting between the two of them. It's it's just all nonverbal. He comes in, and she takes his coat. At first, they're like, is this another client? Like, what's going on?
• 37:32
  Like, it you it's hard to tell. And then he sits down for dinner, and you're like, does he is he just renting a room? Like, who is this kid? Because he also looks like he could be like a young student who's living on his own. But then you get a sense, okay, no.
• 37:47
  This is we learn later. This is her son, all of this, but we're not really sure. They don't say anything until finally she looks over and says, no reading at the table. And that's like the first thing and maybe the only thing that whole first scene that they actually say to each other. It's just they have kind of maybe it's just after dad died, they have created a life of just habit and just the same things happening and not much changes about it.
• 38:19
  Pete Wright: Does it feel okay. Two thoughts. One, is it he seems part of the reason that I get confused about is he a client is he seems like an older young man. Right? He he doesn't seem like a teen.
• 38:35
  Andy Nelson: Well, he's very tall. That's really tall. Adds to it. And
• 38:38
  Pete Wright: And that definitely adds to it. And so the first thought is always this for me, is this relationship is somehow inappropriate. But inappropriate because it feels like he should be out in the world and not coming home and living with mom at this point. But he's a student. Right?
• 38:56
  Yeah. And so, you know, that we we get through that. But I don't get a sense that there is love lost between them. What I get is that they've just moved to a point where they don't they don't know how to live their lives together in this way without dad. And so they have gone to this kind of practical, non speaking, just day to day routine in their relationship.
• 39:27
  And it comes down to unfolding the coolest folding couch bed I've ever seen and eating potatoes that are arguably over or undercooked, and that's about it. But I don't get the feeling that there is struggle between them, that they that they don't love each other. Am I allowed to what do think?
• 39:47
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. I think that they love each other, but I think it's just they've fallen into such a routine that they just to the point where when she doesn't turn the radio on, he's just like, are are we not listening to the radio tonight? And she's just like, oh, yeah. No. Here.
• 40:03
  I'll turn it on. Like like, he's so used to that. And then they're getting ready for their walk, and he's just like, ugh, can we not do it? We ate dinner so late. And she's like, no.
• 40:13
  We're still doing it. Like, it's just it's like they have to go through these motions. Everything has to be done. I it's it's just fascinating the way that that works. But what I really think is interesting in the relationship is when we do get those conversations where he's he's a kid, and he's trying to dig deeper and learn more.
• 40:32
  Like, the first one we already talked about was when he asks about how she and dad met. And so we get a little bit of that story. But the other time is when he's talking about him and his friend Jan, and he they're talking about sex and how he's learned like, learned everything that he knows about sex from Jan and and how how awful he thinks sex must be. And it's like, you know, this this penis is stabbing into the woman and like this I mean, really kind of paints a terrible picture of his impression of sex. And he, you know, he and Jan were Jan was saying, you know, they're at that age where they need to be thinking about women.
• 41:13
  He clearly hasn't crossed that line yet because he's kind of, like, has this position in his head as to what it means and is kind of terrified of how he's painted it and and is really doesn't like it. And that was such an interesting conversation to have based on what she does for work, based on stabbing that we actually get later. And it's like, I don't know. I I found that to be kind of a really interesting glimpse into their relationship. And she doesn't really that's the thing.
• 41:52
  It's like she doesn't actually engage in that conversation and try to, like, change his I mean, she says a few things, but it's not like you're no. You it's not like that. She's not
• 42:02
  Pete Wright: Yeah. She doesn't she doesn't sort of defend her work at all. And I I don't get the feeling that he knows what she does when he leaves for school. And the the only thing she engages in at any point is, like, he he says something to the effect of, I don't think I could ever make love to a woman that I didn't I wasn't attracted to. Or if I was a woman, I don't think I could do that.
• 42:23
  And she said, how would you know you're not a woman? I'm going to turn out the lights. Right. So I don't know that she feels necessarily defensive about her chosen line of sort of side hustle, so to speak. And and I would say in that scene, the way she portrays those feelings sort of moves her into scripted mode.
• 42:46
  Like, it feels like she has lines that she that that she reads and then says, I'm gonna turn out the lights. Like, it feels like she just the way she doesn't engage is to read the script that's been in her head and then move out of the room. I think that's really, that's compelling. It's a compelling way for her to dodge only to find her dodge of that entire part of her life inescapable in that last scene. And I'm glad you brought up stabbing because I realized we said we're gonna spoil this movie, and we never actually spoiled the movie.
• 43:20
  In the end, we have this incredible moment where we do see a little bit of this smarmy guy on top of her. She's not doing well. She well, she's she's at first, she's inert, and then we see she's getting uncomfortable. And she starts gripping the sheets and kind of trying to move him off. Hard cut.
• 43:41
  She's now at her makeup mirror. We're in a mirror where it's a mirror shot. And he's behind her, and he kind of they're putting she's buttoning her shirt. He lays down on the bed. She grabs the scissors that she had used to unwrap a package, this package earlier.
• 43:58
  She grabs the scissors off of the the makeup table, and we see her leave the frame of the mirror. And then the next thing, she's walking toward the edge of the room, the edge of the bed. She essentially falls on the guy lodging the scissors into his neck. And the next, I think, five minutes, she goes out and sits at the table in the dark with blood on her hands and just sits. And we just watch her sit and be in that space.
• 44:30
  Andy Nelson: Well, and a little more peace on her face. Like, it looks like she's kind of crossed the line and found a moment of respite. It's really, you
• 44:39
  Pete Wright: know Control. Right? She regained control. In in a place where, I mean, the last three hours and twenty minutes, she or eighteen minutes, she's been reacting to needs of others. Right, to her son.
• 44:54
  Almost everything she does ostensibly is for her son. Right? Food is ready on the table. Money is ready in the in the jar for all of his needs. Like, she's devoting herself to her son, and she has sex for her son.
• 45:07
  And suddenly, this was an effort for her to say, I don't I don't have to do this. I can make choices.
• 45:15
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. Well, and it's it's fascinating because that shot of the mirror, we see her looking down, and it's it's her wedding photo with her and George standing on the church steps next to that are the scissors. I I couldn't help but think that there's some element of the fact that the scissors happened to be right next to her wedding photo. And she surely is having some thought about her time with George, like the the Halcyon days. However, she's looking at it as opposed to what she just went through with this this, John.
• 45:49
  And it's just like, get me out of here. Get this guy off me. And, just like this this point where she's like, she has that moment where I mean, that's really kind of that snap. And it's just I don't know. It it was really fascinating to see with that photo right there that's like the past and the present, and it's a collision that she just, you know, that breaks her.
• 46:17
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. And only in hindsight do you kinda see as a viewer that this was what you just watched was a slow motion collapse of identity, through repetition and routine, and we just get to the end, to the punchline of the worst joke. It's I I mean, it's incredible. We also get no justification.
• 46:37
  We get no. There's no resolution at all. She's just sitting at the table until we're done watching the movie. The movie says you're done.
• 46:45
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. We don't get to see Sylvain come home and see what happened. We don't get to see police. We don't get to see anything. It's just her finally getting a moment of peace.
• 46:53
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. And and in that regard, in hindsight, that that it it seems like the film's language is that, you know, the the stasis of her routine over the three hours previous is the tension that gets unleashed when you when you get to the final scene. Right? That's that's a different sort of cinematic language than we're accustomed to in mainstream film.
• 47:22
  Because the fact is the duration itself is what provides the meaning to that last moment. Right? I don't think the movie would be the same if it were ninety minutes. I also don't think that this movie could be or that this story could be told in just about any other medium. I I don't think I could read a book about it and stay interested.
• 47:43
  Right? Yeah.
• 47:44
  Andy Nelson: It certainly wouldn't make a great podcast. Or or play.
• 47:48
  Pete Wright: Or play. Right? This movie is unique in that I think it is absolutely best suited in the form in which it arrives to us. It is it is a it's a film. That's all it is.
• 48:02
  It's all it can be.
• 48:04
  Andy Nelson: And I think going back to the the the centering it on the the series, it's interesting, like, you know, the seventies, people talk about seventies, the shifts in American film in the seventies and and shifting from kind of like the the musicals in the sixties to something grittier in the seventies. And then, of course, the rise of the blockbusters starting in 1975, fifty years ago with the release of Jaws and the kind of like the the new shift on where movies would go from there. Yet we're still getting these these pioneering visions in global cinema. Like here, have this Belgian filmmaker doing something really unique and finding a way to kind of craft this very intimate story about a woman that, I mean, it's just it's a it's a glimpse into a life that is breaking. And had she slowly been breaking from the time George died?
• 49:03
  Is she just finally, something just happened? She's just like, was it the letter from her sister that that kind of now has pushed her over the edge as far as, like, her life, what they their life, what they think of her and her life? Is it the fact that she doesn't have relationship she wants with Sylvain? Like, where is that? But there's the way that Ackerman crafts this story, I just find so unique and interesting that it's it really stands out as kind of, like, something that is worth recognizing, as it celebrates its fiftieth anniversary.
• 49:37
  Pete Wright: In preparing for this conversation, did you do any digging into why it took quite so long for sight and sound, you know, editors, cinematographers to figure out that this needed to be number one on the on the list. I mean, 1975 to 2022.
• 49:53
  Andy Nelson: You know, I don't have I know it had been on the list before, and it's just that there's always shifts. And I think, honestly, I think Citizen Kane had been the number one film on there for a very long time before vertigo finally overtook it. The way that I don't know if I've read this, but the way that I kind of Citizen Kane, Citizen Kane, Citizen Kane, Vertigo 2012 is is when it bumped it. So Citizen Kane had held on for a very long time. Actually, Bicycle Thieves was number one in 1952 when they first had it.
• 50:36
  And then Citizen Kane for decades before Vertigo. And I just I feel like in some capacity, there is a place for filmmakers to go with the tried and true. Like, well, Citizen Kane must be the best because it's it's been there every year. So we just I would just keep voting it because it's always gonna be the best. And then that and I think, I don't know, the shift to have vertigo suddenly was a surprise for people.
• 51:03
  It was like, oh my god. We can actually have something up there instead of Citizen Kane. Like, it was that's kind of what it seemed like at the time. And so the fact that Jean Diehlman, now shifted, I think was just, you know, speaks more to that same sort of thing. I do think that there is a, fact that they've been expanding, like, how many participants they have, like, in 2012 from 2012 to twenty twenty two, they nearly doubled the participants in the poll.
• 51:36
  So I think that's another element too. They're just getting a lot of other voices in there that are now, you know, reflecting kind of the realities of where we are. It's not just a bunch of the old white men sort of lineup.
• 51:51
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is truly a transformational cinematic experience for me. I I I watched on the headset. My eyeballs were sweaty, Andy.
• 52:04
  They were so sweaty.
• 52:06
  Andy Nelson: Three hours and twenty one minutes in there, man. Yeah.
• 52:08
  Pete Wright: It was it it was a lot in the fishbowl, but, it was worth it. It was worth it. Yeah. It was a hell of a watch.
• 52:16
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. Very interesting. I'm glad that we had a chance to discuss it on the show. And I'm glad I finally watched it. It's one that I've been meaning to, and it's, yes, you do have to set aside quite a chunk of time to do it, but it's like watching, you know, four episodes, you know, that you binge of a show.
• 52:33
  So Right. There you go.
• 52:34
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's just like that. It's not like that. Don't listen to Mandy.
• 52:42
  Andy Nelson: Alright. Well, we will be right back. But first, our credits.
• 53:02
  Pete Wright: The next reel is a production of True Story FM, Engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Arty San, Lumen Wave, Pia Maya, Oriole Novella, and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at the -numbers.com, boxofficemojo.com, imdb.com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show at truestory.fm. And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show. Wake up.
• 53:44
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• 54:09
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• 54:40
  Make yours cinematic. Sequels and remakes, Andy. Good god. What would a sequel be like?
• 54:50
  Andy Nelson: Sylvain Diehlman.
• 54:54
  Pete Wright: It's like the sequel to American Psycho.
• 54:57
  Andy Nelson: That's right. He'll be visiting his mom in prison every day. We'll get to see that trip. It'll be great. Right.
• 55:03
  Yeah. No. There has been no sign of a sequel or a remake of this, but no surprise, there have been spoofs and parodies. That's really what you end up getting with something like this that I think it's I you can see why it's easy to make fun of.
• 55:19
  Pete Wright: Right? I mean, yeah,
• 55:20
  Andy Nelson: it's it's right there. But at the same time, it it doesn't change the fact that it's great. But, yeah, people do enjoy spoofing, parodying it.
• 55:28
  Pete Wright: Yeah. For sure. Alright. Well, how to do it awards season?
• 55:31
  Andy Nelson: It didn't get anything at the time of its release. But then in February, it was named the nineteenth greatest film of the twentieth century in a critics poll conducted by The Village Voice. Then now we'll go back to the sight and sound. In the 2012 poll, it showed up on their rated thirty fifth in the greatest films of all time on the critics poll. Not rated in the top 100 of the twenty twelve director's list.
• 55:54
  So it's interesting. It made it on the critics, but not directors. Then 2022, it was voted as the greatest film of all time, number one on the critics poll. And on the director director's poll tied in fourth place behind 2,001, Vertigo, and Citizen Kane, tying with Tokyo story. This is the fourth film to top the critics poll after bicycle thieves, Citizen Kane, and Vertigo, as we've said, and the first directed by a woman to do so.
• 56:21
  What
• 56:22
  Pete Wright: a crazy ride on that list. Yeah. Jumping all over the place. And so long after the film, was released. That's amazing.
• 56:31
  How, how to do at the box office? Oh my god. The AppFum is going to be bonkers.
• 56:44
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. It's interesting. So for her film, Ackerman actually applied for a grant for a $120,000 from the Belgian government, and she got it. So that was her budget, which is about 707,000 in today's dollars. The movie premiered at the nineteen seventy five con in the director's fortnight, where it received mixed reviews.
• 57:04
  A lot of people really didn't like it. They thought it was really boring. It opened in France 01/21/1976, then finally in The US on 03/23/1983. So it took eight years to get to The US. It's really hard to tell how much of the release and box office info is complete, but what I have is that it earned $19,858 here in The States and 33,323 thousand internationally for a total gross of $313,000, in today's dollars.
• 57:36
  If that's all accurate, it's an adjusted loss per finished minute of about 2,000, but it's also one of those that had a lot of other screenings and likely has earned its meager budget back. Over many, many years. Over many, many years. Exactly.
• 57:55
  Pete Wright: Well, what an experience this movie was. I'm so glad that I can come to you and say, don't resent you at all for putting us on the list.
• 58:03
  Andy Nelson: Even if you did for the first hour.
• 58:05
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Right. Right. I'm over that. I got over it.
• 58:07
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. It's a I mean, it really is a great film.
• 58:11
  It would be an interesting one to see if it ever played, like, on the big screen around me. I'd be curious to go sit in there and see how it played with an audience, you know? Mhmm. Yeah. I really enjoyed it.
• 58:21
  So Alright. Okay. Well, that's it for today's conversation. Next week, we are taking a dip into Italian giallo films as part of this Golden Jubilee nineteen seventy five's pioneering visions in global cinema series. We're looking at Dario Argento's Profundo Russo or Deep Red.
• 58:40
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• 59:38
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• 1:00:32
  Pete Wright: Alright, Andy. It's time. It's letterbox time. Letterbox.com/thenextreels where you can find our HQ page, and we get to see I I mean, we should do an adjusted stars per finished minute. What are you gonna do for this one?
• 1:00:48
  Andy Nelson: I really, really like this one. Again, it took some time to get into the groove, but once I did, I was just like right there in it the whole time. I I think it still I'm gonna say four and a half and a heart is where I'm gonna sit with this one. I I'm debating. I'm like, is it five stars?
• 1:01:07
  I don't know if it is quite yet, but it could be. Four and a half and a heart.
• 1:01:11
  Pete Wright: Yeah. I'm I'm in that boat. I I because I do love what the film represents. And I just don't I mean, how do you rationalize in your head what is ultimately I know exists as a five star movie that I'm never gonna watch again? Right?
• 1:01:32
  I feel like I've I've done it.
• 1:01:34
  Andy Nelson: That's where I am. But does that mean it's like five stars, no heart? Like, see, that's Right. That's the whole thing with heart. It could be though.
• 1:01:41
  Like but I just like but I really liked it. So yeah.
• 1:01:45
  Pete Wright: Yeah. So where I came in was four stars and a heart, but maybe this would be I don't think I have any five star no heart movies. Interesting. Does this break the five star no heart box?
• 1:01:59
  Andy Nelson: I don't know. It could. It depends on what you use hearts for. It's really I don't know what I use hearts
• 1:02:03
  Pete Wright: for, Andy. I'm indiscriminate about my hearts.
• 1:02:07
  Andy Nelson: I know. That's the weird thing about Letterbox.
• 1:02:10
  Pete Wright: No. See, usually, a heart represents a guilty pleasure. Right? That's what I really if if it's a five star film, normally, it's five stars automatically a heart. But, also, I use it in that one two star area where I know it's not a good film, but it's a heart.
• 1:02:24
  I love it. I'll see it again and again. This is the opposite of that. So I guess that's right. I guess this would be five star, no heart.
• 1:02:31
  Andy Nelson: Okay. Five star, no heart. Well, that will average out to 4.75, which will round up to five stars and a heart over at our account on Letterbox at the next reel. You can find me there at sotogreekfilm. You can find Pete there at p Wright.
• 1:02:46
  So what did you think of Jean Dilmaan? Qui Qui
• 1:02:53
  Pete Wright: du du Comerce.
• 1:02:54
  Andy Nelson: No. It's according to the thing here.
• 1:02:58
  Pete Wright: Yeah. That's not right. That's not right.
• 1:03:02
  Andy Nelson: Fine. Fine. So what did you think of that?
• 1:03:07
  Pete Wright: You sound great, though. You sound great. What I want
• 1:03:10
  Andy Nelson: you to hear.
• 1:03:10
  Pete Wright: A lot of
• 1:03:10
  Andy Nelson: work for me. Yes. Just let yeah. Okay.
• 1:03:12
  Pete Wright: Yeah.
• 1:03:13
  Andy Nelson: We would love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the Show Talk channel over in our Discord community where we will be talking about the movie this week.
• 1:03:19
  Pete Wright: When the movie ends Our conversation begins. Letterbox giveth, Andrew.
• 1:03:39
  Andy Nelson: As letterbox always doeth.
• 1:03:41
  Pete Wright: Alright. I I have a long one. And I've already confirmed off podcast that you will bear with me for my long one. Bear with me. Here we go.
• 1:03:51
  This is a five star no heart from Laurel Valentine.
• 1:03:56
  Andy Nelson: Okay.
• 1:03:57
  Pete Wright: To get the obligatory part out of the way, this film is a masterpiece, but it ending up at the top of the sight and sound list of the greatest films of all time does it no favors. No film can live up to that title, so I'd prefer to see Citizen Kane or Vertigo hold the spot as sacrificial lambs. Both great, of course, but the title is a crown too heavy for any single film. And therefore, I wish it was relegated to fewer films. That said, I'll predict now that by the time the 2032 poll comes around, Mulholland Drive will be the new number one film, in part because of Lynch's passing making him rise even more in cinephile circles, and in part because I suspect that Sight and Sound put their thumb on the scale to make this the number one.
• 1:04:40
  And if this is the case, it was a mistake. Can't be too upset if this was naturally voted into the top spot. It's phenomenal, overwhelming work of art, but it is the kind of movie that will scare away people who are already predisposed to think of quiet and slower cinema as pretentious, and those who like it as stuck up and pretending to like it to try to look smart due to the cultural rise of anti intellectual intellectualism. I hate that I feel the need to comment on all of this, but the crown taints the film in a way to give it extra importance that I'm sure Ackerman never intended. All of this said, routine repetition, ennui, existential dread, and love, the entirety of the human emotional experience.
• 1:05:24
  The formalistic structure works as a political way to open kinds of reflection we are hardly ever granted outside of art like this, always something quietly immense happening within the procedure and mundane. It's somewhat misleading to say that this is about a middle aged woman doing household chores. It's about life itself, how we spend our days and how we spend our lives, and routine can become imprisonment and escapism. In the moment, I was entirely engaged, but the mind still wandered a bit, projecting memories and experiences onto the film, its settings, its characters, the themes it's engaging. I can't stop thinking about this film.
• 1:06:04
  And since seeing it, I've been putting a lot of thought into my life and how I want to spend my time, haunting and life affirming. Five stars.
• 1:06:13
  Andy Nelson: Wow.
• 1:06:15
  Pete Wright: I I that first section, I think, is a really interesting take on it. Like, I mean, we love the movie too. So the second part is, thoughtful and, to my mind, accurate. But that first part, I think, is is an interesting reflection on the the weight of the crown on the films that carry it.
• 1:06:35
  Andy Nelson: Yeah. Absolutely. And I I think that's very much that also came up quite a bit when it was named the best film. I think Paul Schrader might be the one who is most vocally the filmmaker who is most vocally like, what the hell are they thinking?
• 1:06:49
  Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Alright.
• 1:06:51
  What do you got?
• 1:06:52
  Andy Nelson: Interesting. I went short and sweet, and I went the funny route. What are you gonna do? Patrick Williams, four and a half stars. After spending three days with Jean Dillman, I can confidently say that she is a woman who does not like to waste electricity.
• 1:07:06
  Pete Wright: She turns off the lights so much. That's pretty good. I just noticed this one, which I probably should have picked instead of the pretentious one that I did pick and love so much. This is three stars from Tommy Jensen who says, I can fix her. Oh, we're awful.
• 1:07:28
  That's funny. Thanks, Letterboxd.