CHANTAL AKERMAN -- GODMOTHER OF THE NEW EXTREME

Antonio Campos cites Chantal Akerman, and especially her seminal film JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (1975), as inspirational on AFTERSCHOOL.  Akerman came to campus in Fall 2009 when she exhibited Chantal Akerman:  Moving Through Space and Time at the Miami Art Museum (MAM).  JEANNE DIELMAN... is considered a masterpiece of structuralist and feminist cinema (although Akerman would argue against that label) and The New York Times called it the "first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of the cinema."  Operating on the idea of "boredom," mentioned by Catherine Wheatley in the FUNNY GAMES reading, Akerman is rigorous and demanding of the spectator.  The film unflinchingly documents the quotidian details of a Belgian mother during her domestic duties and her somewhat surprising interludes as a prostitute.  Static camera shots, duration that express the oppressive weight of real time, seemingly laconic editing, and a distant camera manage to build a suspense unique to cinema.  JEANNE DIELMAN... is about waiting and waiting and waiting for something unknown and shocking.

Here is a great essay on JEANNE DIELMAN from Ivone Margulies, a leading Akerman scholar and a participant in the University's colloquium on the director.