★ 7 / 10
Experimental, innovative, absurdist, superficial, coherently boring.
Falkner1976
Four pronouns, three parts, two types of narration (the one we hear and the one we see) in a single provocatively minimalist film.The first-person narration we…
Four pronouns, three parts, two types of narration (the one we hear and the one we see) in a single provocatively minimalist film.The first-person narration we hear would be the Je, the images of Je that we see in response to the narration would be the Tu. Il and Elle would be the two sexual relationships that Je maintains in the second and third parts of the film.The first part shows an interest in confronting two modes of narration, auditory and visual, exposing curious discrepancies. Akerman seems as if she wants to show the inherent discrepancies between the subjectivity and the needs of recited verbalization and those of cinematic visual narration.There is a sense of necessity, of complete justification in the minimalist artistic approach adopted, totally in agreement with the content. And the innovative and experimental nature is beyond doubt.Another thing is whether these contents convince us or not. The truth is that it is enormously difficult to interpret what we are seeing, or the implications that the director wants to assign to them.For example, in that first part, we do not understand the behavior of the protagonist (Je, and even more Tu), and there does not seem to be an attempt to justify it in any way (depression, existential crisis or any of those things). She is simply a young woman who seems idle and bored and who at some point casts an intelligent and knowing look at the camera. Like the rest of the characters that will appear, she does not earn our sympathy nor does she intend to, rather she seems to convey a proud superficiality that makes us uncomfortable. The girl tells us that she has not left her room for almost a month, feeding exclusively on sugar, but misteriously maintaining her full physical condition. We see her nonchalantly writing some letters while she puts the spoon full of sugar in her mouth again and again. The most we can say is that Chantal Akerman has no idea what it is to paint a flat, or the nutritional needs of a person. At a certain moment it snows (by the way, Akerman doesn't pay much attention to these technical aspects...), but the girl walks around the room naked without the slightest shivering.The second part begins with the girl who finally decides to leave home to visit a girlfriend. While hitchhiking, she is picked up by a truck driver with whom she begins to become sexually intimate, although there is hardly the slightest conversation between them. We see them eat together in a restaurant while watching television, or have a beer without starting any conversation. But in any case, the young woman feels attracted to the boy enough to masturbate him and then listen to his confidences regarding his family relationships and his increasingly uncomfortable sexual obsessions.The third part begins when the girl arrives at her destination, her friend's house. Once again the meeting turns out to be cold and the behavior of the two young women capricious. If there are tensions between them, they seem as emotionally superficial as their desires, and entirely physical. Little by little they dedicate themselves to a silent mutual seduction, and (as we think should usually happen to them), after the apparent initial irritation, they smooth things over and end up sleeping together. The sex scene is a mixture of Greco-Latin wrestling, display of sexual positions and artistic recreations of unknown ancient marble groups in motion.As insubstantial as in everything else, the next morning, the young woman gets out of bed and abandons her friend without even the slightest comment, we understand that to spend another month eating sugar in her room.An inmensely interesting film, disruptive in showing the artistic posibilities of radical minimalism in plot and style, experimental in its rhythm and innovative in some of its themes, to show us an attitude towards life that does not seem to go beyond a very basic and inconsequential hedonism.The young director seems here to be playfully in accordance with this attitude towards life.
★ 7 / 10
Is it art?
Red-125
Je tu il elle (1974) was shown with its French title. It translates into I you he she. The movie was co-written and directed by Chantal Akerman. Chantal…
Je tu il elle (1974) was shown with its French title. It translates into I you he she. The movie was co-written and directed by Chantal Akerman.
Chantal Akerman portrays Julie. She is the "I" of the title. For the first third of the movie, Julie stays in her small apartment. We hear her thoughts in voiceover. Often the thoughts don't match what we're seeing on the screen. Akerman has built in a lag. For example, she might say, "I undressed and lay on my bed." What we see is Akerman sitting on a chair, eating sugar. Later, we may see her undressed on her bed.
This part of he film is strange, because all Julie eats is sugar, which she eats by the spoonful from a bag. She also tells us that she has painted the furniture different colors, although we can't see this because it's a black-and- white movie. She's waiting for someone or something, although we don't know for whom or for what. (I was waiting for her teeth to rot out.)
In the second part of the movie, Julie hitchhikes and gets picked up by a truck driver. He's played by Niels Arestrup, who is apparently a active actor in France, although I hadn't heard of him. He's a decent enough person, and doesn't harm her in any way. I assume he is the "il" in the title.
In the final third of the movie, Julie arrives at the apartment of "Girlfriend." (She must be "elle.") She's portrayed by Claire Wauthion, a well-known Belgian actor with whom I'm not familiar.
It's clear in context that she and Julie had been lovers, and they had a serious breakup. We know that because the first thing Girlfriend says to Julie is, "I want you to leave."
However, Julie doesn't leave. What follows is a ten-minute scene of lesbian lovemaking. No subtle shadows and sighs--the real thing. If it weren't art, it would be porn.
That's why I labeled this review as having a spoiler. If lesbian love turns you off, watch another movie. If not, this one is interesting. Strange, but interesting. Akerman has her unique style, and you have to accept it to enjoy her work.
This movie is part of the Eclipse Criterion Collection. (Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies.)
Je tu il elle has an IMDb rating of 6.8. I agreed, and rated it 7.
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Very good movie, very bad rip. Pity