Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles shows the audience three days in the crushingly empty life of the titular character, a widowed single mother in 1970s Brussels who supports her son through sex work. The film is restricted to Dielman’s small flat, restricted being the crucial word. By the end of the film’s three and a half hours, we know Dielman’s tightly regimented routine very well, for it is all we see (because it is all she does). Briefly, she wakes up, makes the bed, makes the coffee, shines her son’s shoes, goes shopping, does the washing up, looks after a neighbour’s baby for a while, receives her ‘male client’, cooks supper, eats supper in silence with her son, unfolds the sofa bed, and goes to sleep. Her son is unresponsive and selfish (he never even says thank you), leaving Dielman clutching at encounters in shops for sustained human contact. The sex does not enliven this routine: it is no less clinical and precise than any of the rest of it. Only at the end is there the prospect of change, but the future is not bright.

Delphine Seyrig gives an incredible performance, maintaining a blank mask throughout. I think she smiled once. As I said, the film is three and a half hours long and mostly set in one small location. It also has static camera angles (no panning, no zooming, no mercy) and no non-diegetic sound. Mostly then, the film is made up of long, static shots of a very lonely woman diligently peeling potatoes in near silence. Is it boring? I wouldn’t say that – nothing this intense could be called boring – but it is uncomfortably claustrophobic and a suffocating experience. And so it should be. A few days after seeing Jeanne Dielman, I already want to see it again.

4/5

Tom Bench