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July 24, 2007

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

A mother and a whore

By Tram

MY FIRST FEMINIST AWAKENING occurred not during a formal session in a Women's Studies course in college, but rather in the confines of my own living room. I was around ten, and my parents were quarreling, as usual about money, when my mom suddenly ran into my room, sobbing uncontrollably. My dad, as it turned out, had exchanged some hurtful words to my mom, telling her that the only thing she knew how to do was spit out babies and scrub floors. As cynical as this may sound, it was at that point that I realized that as beautiful motherhood can be, domestic work wasn't - and shall never be - something a woman can proudly claim for herself if she wanted respect. As long as we live in a money-driven society where the domestic and work spaces are considered binaries of one another, the invaluable experiences of motherhood and housework, both costly disadvantages, shall always be undervalued and marginalized.

Art may be imitation, but sometimes I think its power can transcend artificiality and move us in ways we never thought possible. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1974) conjures up images so painstakingly close to home that it think it crosses the line of fiction and enters the realm of real life. As a film that tenderly reclaims the gaze at an all-too-neglected space, I cannot help but want to thank you Akerman and everyone involved in the making of this work of art. Akerman once said that Jeanne Dielman was a tribute to her mother. But after watching Jeanne Dielman, in a hypnotized, trance-of-a-state, I'm convinced that Akerman's film is a tribute to all mothers.

JEANNE DIELMAN is an epic film of sorts; an epic in which "nothing" happens in the 3+ hours of real-time housekeeping. The monotony that lingers in the static framing and long takes prompts questions that would not have been raised to the spectator in transitory, shorter takes. For all the "trivial" chores Jeanne may complete, it is a position that adheres to as busy and well-rounded of a schedule as any respectable job in society. Over a two-day cycle, we see Jeanne performing a number of routine tasks: waking up her son in the morning, cooking in the kitchen, setting the table, entering in and out of the hallways after grocery and utility shopping, greeting her son as he comes home from school, etc. In a Warholian-like universe, everything looks and feels repetitive, yet they turn out a tad bit different upon closer inspection. Medium-long shots of Jeanne in the kitchen are interchangeable upon retrospect and memory; if Jeanne is not peeling potatoes, then she is mincing garlic. Time passes, but her movements fail to become distinctive from one another. It is in this indistinctive time-space continuum that alienation kicks in; in-between her chores, we often see Jeanne staring detachingly at a wall or piece of furniture.

THE OVERALL ATMOSPHERE of Jeanne Dielman feels sterile and mysterious. Things appear not as they are, but rather adorned under socially acceptable guises. Take, for example, a blue and white china bowl that sits atop a dining table. At first, it looks simple and mundane - an aesthetically pleasing object that is often used as ornaments in bourgeoisie households. That facade, however, shall eventually shatter in time, as we see - through subsequent intervals - of Jeanne slipping the money into the bowl, following the end of each paid male visit. But it's not just prostitution that is at odds with Jeanne's exterior image; there are other fish-out-of-water elements that lurk within domestic confines. As University of Chicago Art History professor Rebecca Zorach sharply pointed out in her wonderful review, the dynamics between her and her grown-up, teenager son mirrors the relationship of a dysfunctional old couple who haven't had intercourse for years - she polishes his shoes, cooks for him, and converse in verbal exchanges that uncomfortably hinge between platonic and sexual (in one conversation, for example, he asks her why she slept with his father, inspite of his ugly demeanor; how do you answer such a question to your son?). And to top it all off, Jeanne babysits for an infant child that happens to be not hers.

The prevalent theme of sex-in-exchange-for-goods eerily reminds me of Two or Three Things I Know About Her (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967), a film that precedes Jeanne Dielman by seven years. Nevertheless, as Godardian as this film - and Akerman's other works - may seem, they remain uniquely situated in a female space that the Marxist Godard could not ever shed light on, as empathetic he is in regards to socio-economic exploitation and uneven power dynamics. To directly quote Zorach, who I should note is comparing Jeanne Dielman to another Godard film, Vivre sa Vie (1962), "the viewer isn't given the same kind of access to her face and body that Godard's camera lets us have". For all of the finely calibrated craft displayed onscreen in Jeanne Dielman (including the pitch perfect sound and editing), it's the carefully observed bodily gestures - of Jeanne - as still as a ghost in the kitchen, in the living room, and yes, as finally revealed, in the last few minutes, in the bedroom, that remains most vivid in my mind.

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