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Jeanne Dielman asks a pretty basic question of its audience: is there something worth watching here, too?
Movies all throughout cinema's history have turned our gaze towards all kinds of novel and sometimes seemingly insignificant things, so why not this?
It shouldn't be a controversial question to answer.
Now outside of the films fairly basic premise, is it 'difficult'? I guess. Sort of. There is definitely this attitude that the film can only be appreciated through some kind of intellectual or ideological lens. That it can't be enjoyed in the same way Kane or Vertigo are enjoyed, even though when we boil it all down, the only thing that its long extended scenes actually require to be appreciated can be found in one simple concept: empathy.
Just like Italian Neorealists who pushed the trills and trinkets of most standard cinema at the time to the sidelines, in order to simply observe life, Akerman is only doing the same here. All she wants to know is: Do we see her? And if not, have you looked into your own kitchen recently?
When it comes to this films politics, this is really all it boils down to. It's not a question that should provoke such a weird amount of hostility, and it's really only because of the hyperbolic reaction it receives from so many people, that its ideological element becomes so prominent in its discussion. When ultimately, this is simply about one thing, and one thing only: is there something worth watching here?
I would say, clearly there is. As long as critics keep throwing up there hands and screaming that this isn't even a movie, it has something to show us about ourselves. About why we try to deny the invisible people in society the luxury of even having a narrative to call their own. But most importantly, even if we ever get to the point where the controversy over the film goes away, and people stop frothing at the mouth at the simple mention of her name, this will still be a life worth examining because, just like Vertigo does with Scotty, or Citizen Kane does with Charles Foster Kane, Jeanne Dielman reveals someone to us:Jeanne Dielman. And her commonality shouldn't exclude us from seeing value in her. Or her story. Or the movie she is in.
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