Dave This pretentious art-house film is well over three hours long and has very little entertaining content and not much dialogue. It shows three days in the life of a very boring widowed forty-something prostitute who has obsessive- compulsive personality disorder and lives with her son in Brussels. The film shows her mundane routine in detail, in which she prepares and cooks food and the film ends with her murdering one of her clients with a pair of scissors after she has an orgasm.It's very difficult to believe that a woman who is this dull would become a prostitute and that she would be able to gain and keep clients. She's far too dull for the viewer to feel anything for her. Killing her client makes no sense, and we don't see what happens afterwards. Presumably she is either sent to prison for a long time and/or commits suicide - either or which would result in her son growing up without either parent. I heard about this film when I heard of the director's death and heard it described as a masterpiece. I watched it soon after and was bitterly disappointed. This film is so boring that I had to watch it over a period of several days.This is often described as a great feminist film. I fail to see how this has anything to do with feminism.

evening1 A compelling portrait of emotional alienation that is reminiscent of Polanski's "Repulsion." Jeanne (Delphine Seyrig) seems a domestic goddess -- carefully planning each well-balanced meal, doting on her only child, and keeping a pin-neat apartment. But she's robotic with people -- seemingly just tolerating their invitations and chatter and never saying much more to her son than "Did you wash your hands?" before breakfast.Despite appearances, the perfectly put-together widow ekes out a living by turning tricks each afternoon in her bedroom, and then scrupulously scrubbing herself after each encounter. With each successive john, we see a little more of how Jeanne feels about her hidden occupation, till after a third encounter we are left with no illusions at all.Does Sylvain suspect how his mother earns a franc? As the 3.5-hour film inches along, seemingly in real time, one's theory on this question may evolve.In all, this film drives home the psychological truth that the more perfect a person may look, the more disorder she may be hiding below the surface.This is a devastating portrait of the high cost of keeping up appearances.(I was saddened to read on Wikipedia that Mlle. Seyrig, who played the opalesque heroine, died some 15 years after the film came out, of lung disease. This was one bravura performance.)

Sindre Kaspersen Belgian screenwriter, film professor, actress, producer and director Chantal Anne Akerman's third feature film which she wrote, is based on her own childhood memories and observations of women and their ways of life. It premiered in the Director's Fortnight section at the 28th Cannes International Film Festival in 1975, was shot on location in Brussels, Belgium and is a Belgium-France co-production which was produced by producers Corinne Jenart and Evelyne Paul. It tells the story about a middle-aged working-class woman named Jeanne who lost her husband years ago and who still lives in the same apartment in the city of Brussels with her son named Sylvain who is a student at a Flemish school. Jeanne makes a living as a sex worker and a daytime child-minder for one of her neighbors children, but her solitary and exaggeratedly organized life which mainly consists of cooking, cleaning, shopping and assisting her son with his homework is slowly altering.Distinctly and statically directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated mostly from the main character's point of view, draws a heartrending and both intimate and distant portrayal of three days during a week in a dutiful widow and caring mother's life which is marred by her commitment to her daily routines. While notable for it's naturalistic and mostly interior milieu depictions, sterling art direction by art director and production designer Philippe Graff, cinematography by French cinematographer and director Babette Mangolte, costume design, fine editing by film editor Patricia Canino and use of colors, light and sound, this character-driven story which compassionately examines themes like gender roles, prostitution and the conditions of women depicts a dense and internal study of character where the protagonist, who all though hardly ever smiling, keeps up a brave face, and her repetitive gestures creates the continuity.This unsentimental, at times rhythmic and acutely framed drama from the mid-1970s which is set in the capital of Belgium where a war survivor who spends most of her time in her kitchen and who for personal and understandable reasons lives in a self-made prison of rituals which she thinks protects her from the non-existing dangers she thinks might occur if she changes anything, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, subtle character development and continuity, modest atmosphere, sparse dialog, moments of silence, underlying emotional tension, sense of time and space and the understated, physical and reverent acting performance by Lebanese actress Delphine Seyrig (1932-1990). A minimalistic, climactic and inventive piece of artistic cinema and a pointed political and cinematic statement which may not be the most heart-warming or humorous narrative feature, but undeniably brave and commendably executed by a then 25-year-old filmmaker.

valbrazon "Jeanne Dielman" is the movie where you already know it's from a true story, many women stays at home to clean the house during the whole day. You surely ever heard of someone in your entourage who has the same life.We can interpret this film like a critic of the cliché of the wife who mostly stay at home and the husband who drink alcohol front of television. Directed by a woman, it's probably sure as she wanted to tell as the life of housewife is not funny at all.The crew of the movie is mostly composed of women (scriptgirl, cinematographer...), it's very rare in cinema industry.A must see movie.