The British Film Institute's Sight and Sounds does a poll every decade in which film critics rom around the world vote on the best films ever made. Recently, the poll was released and this decade agreed that Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is the greatest film ever made. The plus? It has great nudity! Let's take a look at this film and what makes it so great - including its nude bath scene!
Belgian female director Chantal Akerman directed this film in 1975 when she was only 25. The film is over three hours long - nothing in today's runtimes, but considering the 70s flick follows a widowed housewife in three days of her life it is monumental. What could this woman possibly do that warrants a three-hour movie? Let's take a look.
The film is subtle and slow. In fact, it is called an early pioneer in "slow cinema". As a result, the slowness of the film serves the agonizing purpose of showing us our protagonist's decline to a breaking point. She is a lonely widow whose routines are SO set in stone that she does all of them despite not having her husband around for years. She seems to prefer to be alone and she lives by her routine.
Everything slowly unravels following a letter from her sister checking in on her and worrying about her loneliness. The sister encourages her to date again. We don't see how this bothers Delphine directly - until her teenage son asks her questions about love and sex. He suggests that his mother did not have a passionate love for his father, which she seems to not think is important.
However, it is clear that this bothers her in some way because the next day her routine is slightly thrown off. And the next day it is all off even more! From buttons on her apron not matching to her hair not being brushed to her not bathing properly to a loooooong scene in which she prepares coffee that she decides she doesn't want, Jeanne's seemingly mundane routine tells us a greater story of a woman who busies herself so that she never has to confront her unhappiness. That is until...she snaps!
Jeanne is a housewife except that she is also a sex worker who takes a client every day at 5 pm. On the third day of these three days of her life, Jeanne lashes out at her client. It's exhilarating!
If this film has been around since the 1970s, why is it just now being decided upon as great? Why is it now bypassing Citizen Kane and The Vertigo? That is partially due to the growing appreciation of the clear artistry this film displays. It is slow and steady, but it is unrelenting.
My favorite thing about this film is that it begins and ends with Delphine Seyrig's hot body! She bathes herself rigorously and shows off her milky mams when she sits nude in the bathtub. At the end of the film, she is sitting in her bedroom wearing only her underclothes as she meets with her 5 pm client. Hey, what's a day in the life of a hot Belgian lady without some nudity?
