(possible spoiler in final paragraph, if such a thing applies to a non-narrative film)
I have yet to see Chantal Akerman's signature film, JEANNE DIELMAN..., so for now at least, this may be the finest work by this intriguing filmmaker. NEWS FROM HOME is a non-narrative tone piece in which Akerman reads letters from her mother in native Brussels, describing familial matters. Meanwhile, the visual content of the film is strictly scenes of New York. However, Ms. Akerman has chosen the seemingly most lonely places in the city to illustrate her project. This work is a striking and moving piece on displacement. Her reading letters from a foreign land operates on another plane from the visual decoupage. The fact that the audio and visual content contrast one another IS the point. Not only is she displaced from her home, but she is also a stranger in a strange land. The desolate urban locations accentuate this, as well as those rare shots in a bustling subway in which commuters look disapprovingly into the camera, as if she (or we, the viewer, for that matter) has intruded upon them. (A similar motif occurs in her short film, HOTEL MONTEREY) Too often film writers consider Ms. Akerman's work to be cold, but this, like her other great films of the 70's (JE TU IL ELLE, LES RENDEZVOUS D'ANNA), is a piece about alienation which is very moving.
Postscript: the final nine-minute shot taken from a ferry boat shows the majestic cityscape of Manhattan as Akerman is leaving to go home. (Interestingly, her next film, RENDEZVOUS, is about a filmmaker returning to Brussels) This shot is hypnotic. Ironically, I only saw this film two days before September 11, 2001; that landscape has changed forever.
I have yet to see Chantal Akerman's signature film, JEANNE DIELMAN..., so for now at least, this may be the finest work by this intriguing filmmaker. NEWS FROM HOME is a non-narrative tone piece in which Akerman reads letters from her mother in native Brussels, describing familial matters. Meanwhile, the visual content of the film is strictly scenes of New York. However, Ms. Akerman has chosen the seemingly most lonely places in the city to illustrate her project. This work is a striking and moving piece on displacement. Her reading letters from a foreign land operates on another plane from the visual decoupage. The fact that the audio and visual content contrast one another IS the point. Not only is she displaced from her home, but she is also a stranger in a strange land. The desolate urban locations accentuate this, as well as those rare shots in a bustling subway in which commuters look disapprovingly into the camera, as if she (or we, the viewer, for that matter) has intruded upon them. (A similar motif occurs in her short film, HOTEL MONTEREY) Too often film writers consider Ms. Akerman's work to be cold, but this, like her other great films of the 70's (JE TU IL ELLE, LES RENDEZVOUS D'ANNA), is a piece about alienation which is very moving.
Postscript: the final nine-minute shot taken from a ferry boat shows the majestic cityscape of Manhattan as Akerman is leaving to go home. (Interestingly, her next film, RENDEZVOUS, is about a filmmaker returning to Brussels) This shot is hypnotic. Ironically, I only saw this film two days before September 11, 2001; that landscape has changed forever.