Chantal Akerman
Je, tu, il, elle

Does anyone know Chantal Akerman? I didn't, at least until a short time ago. Her name, however, seems to echo from the recesses of my memory like a name carrying a fragrance—a perfume—like the scent of the pages of books when you flip through them, a name that sounds good, that has the taste of cinema. I don't know if Akerman is famous, or how much and in which circles she is, but it piques my interest, so if anyone knows, maybe give a shout.

Je, tu, il, elle. I, you, he, she. The film is in French, and the version I watched was in the original language, with Dutch subtitles. Big smile because I don't speak either language but I understand a little of both, and obviously films should be watched in the original language, and especially if you're lazy and don't feel like looking for at least the right subtitles, you manage with what you have, if available. Anyway, I watched the film as it was, and what I'll give you is a review, if we want to call it that, of what I saw and heard, in the strict sense of the word, stripped, let's say, of semantic superstructures.

There's a girl with her back turned in a room, sitting at an angle to the frame. The girl is writing. She writes a letter, then—in no particular order—sits on the bed, pushes the mattress aside, curls up on the floor in a corner, and continues to write, eating with a teaspoon something I can't figure out what it is. Then the frame changes, and she is laying out sheets of paper on the floor, reorganizes them, lies down, sleeps, undresses, eats again. There is a very beautiful scene where the girl, sitting on the bed, eats from the same bag as before, then pauses, and the bag tilts, spilling its contents—which is sugar, as confirmed by a familiar sound, a sucre confirmed by a written word that resembles that sound or that of a similar word. The grains continue to spill for long seconds, while she looks sideways, then notices, and, without breaking that temporal suspension, at the same slow pace, picks them up and handful by handful puts them back into the packet, then, without finishing, lies down again and remains so. Time passes, marked by the narrator's voice, which speaks in the first person and describes the actions taken, like a self-description in low, delicate, and sensual tones. From here, I understand that days pass, and she remains in this room without moving—sometimes really—but above all without going outside, and her naked silhouette stands backlit against the open window, outside of which snow falls—perhaps, now that I think of it, like that sugar, which marks an external time, but remains motionless in the microcosm of the room.

There are two features that, in my opinion, characterize films like this (note: by "like this" we mean independent/experimental): the temporal dilation, supported by fixed and long shots that make you, the viewer, expect something to happen that mostly doesn't, or it's a detail that, if noticed, you will end up attributing a meaning to, maybe even forced; and a certain unrealism in the actions, due to the fact that the gestures, behaviors, reactions of the characters to the events are unrealistic, at least based on my personal experience of the world. Perhaps it's the slowness of the actions themselves, their being suspended in this time of their own, and the absence of dialogue, of an immediate give-and-take, that creates this sensation.

The girl eventually leaves the room she was in at the beginning, which is probably hers: she hitchhikes and gets into a truck driven by a boy. The two—of course—do not speak. At first, I thought the movie was shot in America, and that the girl—a bit like Akerman, as far as I know—was foreign and didn't speak English; but in a later scene, the two stop at a bar where one hears French being spoken, and I understand that no, evidently it's not that she can't speak, she doesn't want to speak, or better yet, the absence of dialogue is due to a purely aesthetic choice. Only later did I see that the girl, the actress, is Chantal Akerman herself (no, I didn't remember what her face looked like) and I thought that in the story there was, I don't know if a biographical note, but a very personal stamp: the nudity, the intimacy of the scenes seem like an open window to her private world, of which what we see is only the shape, the appearance. We only see scenes, actions, which are just outward results, and what we ask is, in fact, why does she do this, why does she do that, what does she feel? This is a question that is always dodged by that little smile stamped on her lips, which does not let emotions show. We see what is in front of us, but reading a word doesn't mean understanding its meaning. Like watching a movie, maybe even in a language you don't understand. I am very, very biased because this is one of those rare cases where I feel a femininity in which I identify, which I call "feminine" but which perhaps isn't even that, or perhaps doesn't want to be, but I see a sincere, intrinsic component, and then I identify in the genre the common thread I've found but can't name. So, keeping with the theme, if you've seen or will see the film, the title will come back to mind, and you'll ask: who are je, tu, il, elle? Who is tu? Who are you? Is it me? Me watching the film or her? Or him? Or both? Not being able to put a name to people makes them vague and undefined, and we cannot distinguish one from another. Semantically and not only.