Moving in Time: Chantal Akerman's Toute une nuit

Abstract

materializing like luminous fireflies from the shadows. These gestures take center stage in this film, while the nameless characters and discontinuous mini-narratives function merely as props through which movement is realized. Akerman does not use narrative in the film in order to achieve continuity; rather, she creates continuity through constant affective change that endures throughout the film. In other words, the discontinuity of Akerman's collection of fragmented narratives, often abruptly cut and seemingly independent are fused in affect; the melody of a pop song carried across the city by the wind, the clacking of footsteps on city pavement, rustling leaves, slamming doors, and most importantly the poses and gestures of the actors' bodies merge in order to suggest affective change. Given this preliminary description of the film as a collection of fragmented stories fused together by affective rather than narrative movement, it should already be evident that Toute une nuit requires a certain mental flexibility from the spectator, a willingness to move between the spatial mode of narrative and a more temporal mode of