“A lonely widow turns to prostitution to make ends meet.” This one-sentence synopsis offered by HBO Max for its presentation of Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, is as literally accurate as it as tonally, emotionally, thoroughly misleading. It suggests that Chantal Akerman’s 1977 masterpiece could be a humanist melodrama, the sort of hardscrabble women’s … [Read more...]
The View From Home 79: Akerman’s swan song, Wenders’ wayward comeback, a John Ford masterpiece and more
A scene from No Home Movie (2015). (Icarus Films) No Home Movie: The tragic coda that followed the completion of Chantal Akerman’s inadvertent swan songNo Home Movie (Icarus, $19.01 DVD) is forever inextricable from the picture itself. The documentary charts the director’s conversations with her 86-year-old mother Natalia during the last months of the latter’s life; Akerman … [Read more...]