No recent review of Jeanne Dielman can begin without acknowledging the elephant in the room; we've all arrived here because of BFI's latest Sight & Sound poll, a once-in-a-decade exercise where esteemed film critics are invited to send in their personal top 10s, and the results are tabulated into a list of 100 films meant to represent the greatest of all time. In the past, The Bicycle Thieves, Citizen Kane, and Vertigo have all topped the list. In 2022, Jeanne Dielman stunned everyone by becoming crowned the new, eponymous "Greatest Movie of All Time."
As it happened, Jeanne Dielman was next on my queue of movies to watch, and I was well aware of its reputation. Jeanne Dielman is a long, boring movie. That's not a derogatory remark, simply a statement of fact that few would disagree with. It's a 201-minute exercise in presenting the minutiae and everyday mundanity of a housewife. Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) goes about her day, cleaning, cooking, and occasionally prostituting herself to support her plain life with her son, who only appears briefly for dinner. Told over three days, director Chantal Akerman stages the film with long, unbroken takes as we watch Jeanne do menial tasks, like peeling potatoes, taking a bath, or watching a pot of coffee brew.
While the film is boring by definition, there's a certain hypnotic fascination that develops watching these routine tasks carried out. For a film as long as The Return of the King there's so little that actually happens, but that's the statement Akerman is making. Before smartphones and streaming services, a housewife had little to do in their daily life and was consigned to keeping the house while their husbands and offspring went out and explored the world.
The film's status as the greatest of all time in many ways will draw a lot of criticism from those that come to it blindly, not knowing what they are in for. It's a challenging film that I watched over a few days, as watching it all at once would probably feel like an interminable experience. But it's also a fairly audacious, bold piece of filmmaking. In the final two shots of the film, Jeanne finally does something unexpected and shocking, an action that normally wouldn't shock were it not for the proceeding three hours where it felt like almost nothing happened. When she drops a potato late in the film it's almost an upsetting moment, as it breaks the hypnotic flow of the routine.
We come to films for many different reasons, to be entertained and transported to other places. But we also look for reflections of ourselves or lives lived we could never imagine. I can't really recommend Jeanne Dielman because I know for most people it will be a struggle to sit through, but if you do choose to view it, be ready to surrender to the film's languid pace and structure. It's a film I probably won't find myself revisiting anytime soon, but I'm glad I experienced it at least once.
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