Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) [The Criterion Collection]

Director: Chantal Akerman
Writer: Chantal Akerman
Stars: Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte, Henri Storck

A singular work in film history, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles meticulously details, with a sense of impending doom, the daily routine of a middle-aged widow, whose chores include making the beds, cooking dinner for her son, and turning the occasional trick. In its enormous spareness, Akerman’s film seems simple, but it encompasses an entire world. Whether seen as an exacting character study or as one of cinema’s most hypnotic and complete depictions of space and time, Jeanne Dielman is an astonishing, compelling movie experiment, one that has been analyzed and argued over for decades.

Extras:
- New 2K digital restoration, undertaken by the Cinémathèque royale de Belgique and supervised by director Chantal Akerman and cinematographer Babette Mangolte, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Autour de “Jeanne Dielman,” a documentary—shot by actor Sami Frey and edited by Agnès Ravez and Akerman—made during the filming of Jeanne Dielman
- Interviews from 2009 with Akerman and Mangolte
- Excerpt from “Chantal Akerman par Chantal Akerman,” a 1997 episode of the French television program Cinéma de notre temps
- Interview from 2007 with Akerman’s mother, Natalia
- Excerpt from a 1976 television interview featuring Akerman and actor Delphine Seyrig
- Saute ma ville (1968), Akerman’s first film, with an introduction by the director



Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978:
In the revolutionary first decade of her filmmaking career, Chantal Akerman devoted herself to nothing less than the total resculpting of cinematic time and space. Journeying between Europe and New York City, Akerman forged a highly personal style that fuses avant-garde influences with deeply human expressions of alienation, desire, and displacement—themes that she would explore in a series of increasingly ambitious shorts, documentaries, and features, including the towering Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. With immersive rhythms that render the most minute details momentous, these landmarks of twentieth-century art continue to reveal new ways of experiencing cinema and framing reality.