Embracing / Enduring the Mundane Everyday - Jeanne Dielman at Fifty

So, let’s get one thing out of the way: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is tedious, frustrating, and largely free from any sort of traditional plot. To put it plainly, the film can be overwhelmingly boring. However, that’s the point, and oddly enough, therein lies its genius.

Made by the late, great Belgian director Chantal Akerman, the film first came to my attention in 2022 after shooting its way to the top of the esteemed BFI Sight and Sound poll, as I’m sure it did for many others. Post-poll, the film has garnered widespread recognition from movie lovers, as well as notable scrutiny.

How can a 200-minute movie of a woman doing housework be considered greater than Vertigo (1958) or Citizen Kane (1941)? This question is a fair one. If we’re talking purely about the development of film as a medium, cultural impact and legacy, as well as sheer entertainment value, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles’ timeless works, along with many more movies in the poll, have made a bigger splash than Jeanne Dielman.

However, like all art, film is subjective, and at the end of the day, enough people considered Jeanne Dielman to be significant enough to warrant a place in film history’s elite catalogue.

So, what to do with it? What does this now fifty-year-old domestic drama have to say? How does it say it? And why is it so good?

The First Watch

I had the pleasure of watching Jeanne Dielman for the first time in a cinema, courtesy of the BFI’s comprehensive retrospective of Chantal Akerman’s works. I’d seen and read very little about the film prior to watching it, having only seen the now widely spread images of lead actress Delphine Seyrig sitting at her kitchen table, either peeling potatoes or sipping coffee.

Honestly, it’s one of the most challenging cinema-going experiences I’ve had in recent memory.

The basic plot is as follows: Jeanne Dielman (Seyrig) is a widow living with her adolescent son, Sylvian (Jan Decorte). We follow three days in her life, watching as she prepares food, cleans the dishes, heads out shopping, and makes the bed. Oh, and once a day, she has a gentleman caller arrive who pays her for sex. That right there is the major spanner in the works of what is otherwise a wholly uneventful movie.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a struggle to stay awake during this first viewing. Jeanne’s routine plays out in such painstaking detail with seemingly no end in sight. The film retains a mercilessly slow and steady pace for the entirety of its 200-minute runtime, forcing you to absorb every detail of every frame.

On the face of things, there’s no real point, no driving force behind the bare-bones narrative, no sense of agency or direction in the plot. It’s as though you’re trapped in this seemingly never-ending cycle of mundane routine.

The question then is, if Jeanne Dielman is so notably unnoteworthy, why is it, in actuality, a cinematic masterpiece? – A term I don’t use lightly.

Cinematic Recentring

In his radio review of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2022), British film critic Mark Kermode, whose opinions I’m often at odds with, described the project as one that recentres the viewer. I’ve interpreted this observation to mean a reset movie of sorts, one that is lethargically paced and narratively minimalistic to the point that it forces the audience to slow down, pay attention, and really drink in what’s happening on the screen. It’s the type of film that washes your mind of all of the high-octane, non-stop, lightning-paced movies that we have nowadays, giving your brain a chance to rest and catch up. As a fan of Memoria myself, as well as similarly meditative works, such as those of Yasujirō Ozu, I can appreciate the effect that this type of movie has.

Jeanne Dielman is another such film that I would classify as being a reset movie.

Akerman invites you into Jeanne’s world in the most intimate fashion, forcing you to soak up every detail of her life. From brushing her hair to making the bed, from scrubbing herself in the tub to meticulously laying the table, there’s nothing in Jeanne’s life that we don’t look upon without extreme focus.

There’s no overarching plot, no looming threat, no inciting incident, no greater goal in mind. There is simply Jeanne and her day-to-day life, which plays out in excruciating detail for over three hours.

This setup reveals one of the first things that makes Jeanne Dielman unique. It’s a film that demands you to endure the mundanity of real life and, as such, is the antithesis of what cinema is traditionally intended to be: an escape.

Time Doesn’t Matter

One of the film’s most intoxicating effects is how it warps any sense of time.

When I first watched the movie, I had no idea how many days in Jeanne’s life we’d be following. By the end of the second day, I’d completely lost track of how much time had passed and, more importantly, how much longer was left. I began to feel trapped with Jeanne, with no end in sight. This mundanity could continue forever. Has it been one hour or two? Surely we’re approaching the end, but then we might not even be halfway. How much longer is this going to go on for?

The result, at least in my case, was a distinct feeling of claustrophobia, particularly when watching the film in a cinema – no watch, no phone, no means of escape.

It’s here that one of the film’s meta effects takes hold. Jeanne is trapped in the mundanity of her domestic life, and now you are too. Through her carefully considered presentation and pacing, Akerman not only allows you to observe the titular widow’s life but to live it with her. The routine, the silence, the waiting, the boredom, the repetition – you’re now as stuck as she is; her frustration transcends the screen and becomes yours.

Few films are able to reach through the screen and have a tangible and relevant impact on the audience in this way – the achievement is remarkable, and its effect is lasting.

Sylvian and the Psychosexual Issue

Something that caught my attention upon a recent re-watch was the uncomfortable mother-son relationship between Jeanne and Sylvian.

Sylvian, while having relatively little screen time, is an important figure in the film, as he’s one of the key driving forces behind Jeanne’s routine and responsibilities. The pair share few lengthy conversations, with most of their interactions consisting of Jeanne filling the typical mother role – feeding her son, helping with homework, making sure he’s washed his hands. However, their more substantial conversations are of great significance, as they outline the mature and unhealthy dynamic that the two share.

On the two occasions in which Sylvian heads to bed, he and his mother have a couple of short conversations that primarily concern sex. The first sees the young man ask Jeanne how her and his late father met, the answer to which he follows with the frank statement that he “wouldn’t be able to sleep with someone [he] didn’t love”. Little does he know that this assertion inadvertently passes judgement on his mother, who, of course, is engaging in loveless prostitution on a daily basis.

The second conversation is by far the more telling, as Sylvian mentions his friend Jan’s notion that they’re the right age for women, the latter having hung around after school to flirt with the nurse. He then reveals that he felt an urge to protect his mother from his father upon learning about the true nature of sex at the age of ten, going so far as to interrupt the two with pretend nightmares so that she couldn’t be “penetrated”. He even states that he once believed his father’s premature passing to be “God’s wrath”, presumably for ‘hurting’ his mother.

It’s here where the film unveils the Freudian Oedipus Complex angle to Jeanne and Sylvian’s relationship, one that’s quite uncomfortable but undeniably present.

Consider that in the absence of a husband, Sylvian has fulfilled the role of Jeanne’s partner, minus the sexual relationship. As well as mothering her child, Jeanne also shines his shoes, sees him off to school, welcomes him home, goes for daily walks with him in the evening, makes his coffee, and fixes his clothes. Of course, these could all be seen as the typical responsibilities of a mother, but they’re also things that one might do for or with a partner. Jeanne implies that she has no interest in re-marrying, and why would she? In many ways, her adolescent son has allowed her to continue her roles as both mother and wife. The only need she’s missing from her relationship with Sylvian is the sexual one, which she fulfils through her work as an escort.

Honestly, I’m not too sure what this dynamic means for the film as a whole; it’s just one that I noticed and has stuck with me post-watch. I could waffle about it being a comment on the fallout of being a widowed mother, but I’m not sure, and that’s fine. Part of the beauty of Jeanne Dielman is that the titular character’s life is such a blank slate that certain aspects of it will resonate more with some than others. For a film in which seemingly very little happens, there’s an awful lot to interpret and unpack.

Delphine Seyrig

I have to dedicate at least a small portion of this piece to Delphine Seyrig and her towering performance, upon which the film truly hinges. She’s in 98% of the shots, if not all of them. As with much of the movie, there’s not much going on with her performance on the face of things. She performs Jeanne’s menial tasks dutifully and carefully, revealing little about the character’s state of mind.

That said, there are several instances in which we sit with Jeanne as she simply does nothing.

On the third day, she finds herself with some time to spare and nothing obvious to do. With no clear chores to complete, she sits in the living room and stares into space.

A panic sets in. She has nothing to do.

She repeatedly coddles her neighbour’s baby, whom she cares for briefly, despite his incessant crying. She begins to wipe down surfaces and decorative china with little real intent; she’s simply filling time.

In this scene, and in several others, Seyrig works with subtle facial movements that urge you to question what’s on Jeanne’s mind. She might sigh, or smirk, or raise her eyebrows. Sometimes, she runs her hand through her hair as if something is causing stress. But we never get the answers; we’re left only to wonder.

Again, in a film that is mostly free from drama and conflict on the surface, there’s much to garner from the subtleties in Seyrig’s performance, as she personifies the frustration that Jeanne must have bubbling beneath the surface.

The final shot, as those who have already seen the film will know, is striking, and this is in large part down to the wheels spinning behind Seyrig’s eyes as you see her toil and fret in real-time.

For comparison’s sake, and to praise Seyrig’s performance further, I recently saw her in Jacques Demy’s magical musical, Donkey Skin (1970), in which she plays the bubbly and charismatic fairy godmother. Her performance in Jeanne Dielman just five years later couldn’t be more different, showcasing the remarkable range of the now passed Lebanese-French actress.

Seyrig in Donkey Skin (1970)

Continue á Continuer

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles has permeated my everyday life.

Every time I prepare food, take out the rubbish, make the bed, or anything else of that sort, Delphine Seyrig pops into my mind.

In 2025, the film is arguably an even more interesting and challenging watch than it was fifty years ago. Ask yourself, when was the last time you did the dishes without music on or had a video playing in the background? Hell, when was the last time you did any household chore without some sort of white noise to keep you entertained? When you go to meet your friends or visit the shops, are you wearing headphones? Probably. On the bus or the train, you can scroll the journey away. And if you catch yourself with an hour to spare at home, in 2025, there’s no limit on how you can kill the time. There’s an abundance of things to watch, read, listen to, scroll on, or play. With this modern lifestyle in place, Jeanne’s watered-down existence seems even more unbearable.

I can’t, in good conscience, recommend Jeanne Dielman to anyone.

The film is too long and too demanding for me to suggest that anyone spend their evening chugging through it, perhaps reliving some of the housework they’ve just finished.

That said, if you can find the time and you do want to be challenged, Chantal Akerman’s seminal film is one of the most affecting and effective pieces of cinema I’ve seen in quite some time. The lasting impact of the project is unlike anything I’ve experienced in recent years, and it’s extremely rewarding, providing a new sense of perspective on your everyday life.

If you’re willing to open yourself up to Jeanne’s world, know what you’re getting into, and prepare to embrace / endure the beautifully presented, impeccably acted, and frustratingly simplistic life of a woman trapped in the clutches of domestic mundanity.