I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman by Marianne Lambert

Abstract

Lambert, Marianne, réal. I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman. Int. Chantal Akerman. Artémis, 2015. . In an interview from Lambert’s documentary, Akerman astutely sums up what both admirers have appreciated and detractors have critiqued about her films, namely her idiosyncratic approach to cinematic time:“Souvent quand les gens sortent d’un film et quand le film est bien, ils disent qu’ils n’ont pas senti le temps passer. Et, moi, ce que je veux, c’est que les gens sentent, eux, le temps passer. Donc, je [ne] leur ai pas volé ces deux heures. Ils les ont vécues.” Little did Lambert know that time was of the essence in her decision to make the film when she did. The documentary, released in September 2015, fortuitously captures Akerman’s thoughts on filmmaking, love, life, and family before she took her own life in Oct. 2015. Lambert’s approximately hourlong documentary intersperses a retrospective of Akerman’s films with her own reflections on her work, as well as interviews with actress Aurore Clément (who played the eponymous character of Akerman’s 1978 Les rendez-vous d’Anna) and American director Gus Van Sant, an ardent admirer of Akerman’s work.Van Sant, like Akerman, underlines the importance of time in her films:“[Akerman] rejects real time, she calls it ‘her time’ or ‘my time’ [...] by not worrying about time, you enter into this other realm [...] [one that works in opposition to]‘cinema time.’”Shots of Akerman in New York, Brussels, Paris, and Tel Aviv pepper the film—demonstrating Akerman’s constant state of motion while also unveiling the significance of the film’s disquietingly declarative title. When Akerman returns to Paris after a trip to Brussels, she asserts that she has always preferred her Belgian hometown and has never felt at home in the French capital. However, after her mother’s death she feels there is “nothing left” for her in Belgium. Furthermore, Akerman regrets that she was not born in Israel because she believes that, had she been, her mother would have let her play in the streets—unlike in Brussels where she watched the world from a window, “folding in on herself,” a habit she says she found hard to shake. One gets the feeling from Lambert’s film that Akerman has spent her entire life attempting to gain passage into the “other realm” described by Van Sant. It becomes clear throughout the film that Akerman suffers from a professional and theoretical “homelessness” as well. For instance, while a love scene from Akerman’s 1974 Je tu il elle plays, Akerman, in voice-over, explains that she never wanted her films to be shown in gay, feminist, or Jewish films festivals but instead in “regular” festivals so as not to be pigeonholed. Given Akerman’s passing so soon after the release of the film, it is hard not to feel melancholy watching Lambert’s documentary. However, optimism can and should be found in Van Sant’s reflection on her corpus: “The young filmmakers of today will find and popularize [Akerman’s films]. I hope.” Boise State University (ID) Mariah Devereux Herbeck 250 FRENCH REVIEW 90.2 ...