Chantal Akerman: back on his career in 5 films – Le Figaro

VIDEOS – The Belgian filmmaker died Oct. 5 at age 65. She leaves behind bold works, his first short film at the last feature film, presented in August at the Locarno festival.

Chantal Akerman n ‘ is more. The Belgian director died on October 5 in Paris at the age of 65. Complete filmmaker (she was also actress, producer, cinematographer and editor), she invented a daring film, deep, in which it asked its report to the intimacy and history. Back on his prolific career with five outstanding films.

● Saute my city (1968)

In his first short film, Chantal Akerman showed malice by dialing a real tragicomic ode to freedom, whose final cold yet in the back today, now that she is gone. Chantal Akerman has made Saute my city at the age of 18. She takes the stage in a kitchen, it closes wrench and caulking before putting an unnamed bazaar. First she eats a ferocious appetite and robbed while brightness … A real daredevil who ends her head on the stove.

● Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1976)

Jeanne Dielman is his seminal work, that which enables it to be known more widely. A strong film in which she stretches the form (it lasts 3:15) to describe scenes at the close of naturalism. Chantal Akerman dissects the life of a woman at home Brussels (Delphine Seyrig), mother of a sixteen year old boy, whose days are set methodically between kitchen, prostitution and boredom. A life without pleasure that ends up disturbing element.

● A Couch in New York (1996)

Couch in New York Chantal Akerman is a beautiful cast by bringing Juliette Binoche and William Hurt. One interpreter Beatrice, Parisian dancer, exuberant and frivolous, which is eager breath of life change. The other plays Henry, a renowned psychoanalyst living in beautiful New York neighborhoods, but that has more and more difficulty to bear its customers. Via an advert, the two exchange their apartment for six weeks. A host of misunderstandings lead them to mingle.

● The Captive (2000)

Sylvie Testud is one other flagship female figures of the director. In his landmark film The Captive , inspired by The Prisoner , Marcel Proust, French actress plays Ariadne, a free woman who lives with Simon in his Parisian apartment. Distracted her, he follows her, wants to know her, was accompanied during his outings … But Ariadne has a weakness for women, increasing pain as much as the desire to Simon. Chantal Akerman find Sylvie Testud four years later in Tomorrow We Move .

● No Home Movie (2015)

Chantal Akerman is a party too early to know the impact of his latest film, No Home Movie . Presented in preview at the Locarno Film Festival in August, it examines the relationship between the director and his mother, a survivor of the Holocaust, the director liked to film and summon into his world. No Home Movie was the opportunity for Chantal Akerman to follow the last moments of this mother whom she was close, despite the kilometers that could sometimes separate. “I want to work to show that there is more distance in the world,” she told her mother also during a video chat shows in the film. “That’s wonderful. You still have these ideas, “replied her mother. She could not have said it better.