Trailer for the movie "Jean Dillman" (PR)
There was no better year for cinema than 1975, in my personal opinion.
I am ready to defend this claim in any forum.
The year started with The Godfather 2's well-deserved win for Best Picture at the Oscars, and continued with some of the greatest films ever made.
"The Cuckoo's Nest" with Jack Nicholson in the role of his life, "An Afternoon of Calamity" with Al Pacino in the role that freed him from the great shadow of the Corleone family, Stanley Kubrick's perfect "Barry Lyndon", the suspenseful Australian "Picnic in the Shadow of the Mountain", " "Rocky" the movie show that became a cult, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" remains the funniest movie of all time, Diana Ross starred in "Mahogany", we got a glimpse of a future different from our own in "Rollerball", the band "The Who" gave a nod in the musical version of "Tommy" ", Robert Altman proved that he has nothing to prove in the genius "Nashville", and of course "Jaws"
who presented to the world the genius of Steven Spielberg in all its glory and breathed new life into the world of cinema.
And these are only the movies in English.
"The Actors' Journey" was released in Greece, "The Crow's Call" was released in Spain, "The Mirror" was released in Russia, "Song of India" was released in France, "In the Claws of Clarity" was released in the Philippines, "Fox and His Friends" was released in Germany, "Heroes" was released in India, and "Salo" was released in Italy or the controversial 120 Days of Sodom", which was released after the murder of the celebrated director Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Almost every one of the films mentioned here, released as mentioned in one year, can see themselves as legitimate candidates for the title "the best film of all time".
This week the respected magazine "Sight and Sound" chose another film from the same year for the coveted title.
Naturally, as a fan of the year 1975 in cinema, I was happy that the late Belgian director Chantal Akerman won the title - but to my shame, I have never watched a film that was chosen as the best of all time according to a poll that included 1,639 critics from around the world.
I left everything, and sat down to watch the movie without any prejudice about it, and in fact without knowing any plot details about it, and after almost three and a half hours I came back with an answer: "Jean Dillman" is the most boring movie I've ever seen in my life.
no less.
shines shoes.
"Jean Dillman" (photo: screenshot, screenshot)
For the avoidance of doubt, this was absolutely the poet's intention.
Even the full name of the film is boring: "Jean Dillman, 23 rue du Commerce, Brussels 1080".
This is a terrible viewing experience, on the verge of torture.
Over 200 minutes of nothing.
And this is also the creator's intention.
When it was released in 1975, despite success at festivals, no one agreed to screen the film in America.
Not because it's controversial, and not even because of its length - but because the distributors knew people would get out of the movie and ask for their money back.
And rightly so.
Many articles have been written in recent days all over the world about the breakthrough genius of Akerman, who in the film supposedly presents a brave feminist thesis about the depressing routine of women's lives in the 1970s.
Let me burst this bubble: not every "important" movie is also "good."
In this case, not even "watchable".
With your permission, I will offer my own thesis:
Beyond the intended boredom, this is a rather problematic film.
Its whole "genius" purpose is to present an innovative point of view to the cinema of 1975, which was indeed completely male, according to the list of excellent films mentioned in the opening paragraph. Beyond the fact that the main character in the film is a woman, the entire film is filmed from a height of five meters, as if to present a point of expression of A short woman - to contrast the Hollywood films that presented the world with the height of Nephilim. It is indeed a brave and interesting choice, but it does not make the film better. This is a film that is interesting to talk about, analyze and learn from - but really not interesting to watch, to say the least.
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A hot drink is poured.
"Jean Dillman" (photo: screenshot, screenshot)
It is actually a political choice.
A positive desire to balance an industry that for decades was based on masculine expression at best and toxic masculinity at worst.
The fact that a young director (Ackerman was 25 when she directed "Jean Dillman") knocks Hitchcock's Vertigo off the top, whose exploits on the set (a cute old way of saying "sexual harassment") have been the subject of quite a few articles and films - is more than anything symbolic
And that's quite a lot.
The importance of polls and surveys of this kind is mainly in her statement, and in this sense - the statement of "Sight and Sound" is interesting and thought-provoking about the position of women in the film industry over the years, before and behind the scenes.
Ironically, we must note that apart from the first place, in the list of 100 films there are only ten other films made by women, while the top 20 is still made up of very masculine films such as "Citizen Kane", "The Godfather" or the epic western "The Searchers" by John Ford , which is anything but a film that meets the standards of the Woke culture.
The fact that so many critics chose to put "Jean Dillman" in their list of favorite films (the lists were sent unrated) proves its uniqueness as a prominent female film, even if there is a chance that many added it to their list alongside "classic" chauvinistic films as sex From the soup of a sophisticated conscience.
In any case, the truth must be told: "Jean Dillman" is not a better movie than "Vertigo", unless you redefine the concept of "cinema".
This is not only because of the boredom, but because it is a rather problematic film.
I'm not just talking about the reflection of the boom microphone in the frame for long minutes, a glitch that adds a slight feeling of a low-budget student film to the film, but about the performance itself.
Without going into spoilers, the "surprising" ending of the film breaks the streak of boredom of the film with an event that is presented, well, in a rather boring way - which, as mentioned, was done on purpose to preserve the atmosphere of the film - and on the other hand, it also destroys the realism of the film in a kind of deus ex machina Hollywood without sophistication or point.
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Sitting on an armchair with a rag.
"Jean Dillman" (photo: screenshot, screenshot)
After three hours or so of boring segments in which the heroine of the film, a prostitute by trade, mainly turns on and off the light in her apartment, cuts potatoes and fries schnitzels - the last frame of the film (which stretches for many minutes) yields nothing but question marks.
No sane person behaves the way Dillman behaves in the final scene, which cancels the little credit that could still be given to the film.
It's hard to believe that there are people who talk about this unbelievable character as a feminist idol.
On a technical level, we get to see the main character very closely for over three hours, but we don't develop any feelings towards her.
Although she performs a "surprising" act at the end, we don't see her go through any human process.
In fact, if you randomly enter a movie at its 30th minute, its 100th minute, or its 190th minute, you will probably see the same boring scene - Jean Dillman washing dishes, Jean Dillman preparing food or Jean Dillman brushes shoes
No dialogue, no cinematic sophistication.
Four minutes of washing dishes.
More than once in one movie.
Without too impressive acting ability (as much as it is possible to impress washing dishes that is photographed from the back).
The kind of things that are shown on a loop in museums as a visual display, not something that people can actually sit for three and a half hours in a movie theater and watch.
It is perfectly fine to treat a motion picture as a work of art that is greater than a "viewing experience".
There are quite a few films that followed Ackerman's path and made "boring and realistic" cinema on purpose.
The films "Jerry" and "Elephant" by Gus Van Sant jump to mind, but in fact even a blockbuster like "The Predator" by Arnold Schwarzenegger presents a relatively minimalist script for its genre, in contrast to thousands of differences (and another hundred million dollars at the box office).
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Washing the dishes.
"Jean Dillman" (photo: screenshot, screenshot)
Personally, I like such slow and minimalistic literature.
Demanding books in which nothing special happens.
From "The Summer Book" by Tova Janson, through "Stoner" by John Williams to "Ulysses" by James Joyce.
Books whose strength lies in their writing and their depth, and not necessarily in the development of the plot, if there is one at all.
There are also such films, in which the plot is sometimes just an excuse for the visual richness.
Some would argue that Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam have made a career out of it.
But Chantal Ackerman forces us to suffer from all the worlds.
Also a visual description from heaven, also an unreliable story, both a weak plot that doesn't get closure and an excessively excessive film length without justification.
It's not a masterpiece, it's a candy of courage.
Bottom line, it's hard to believe that if the film "Jean Dillman" had been directed by a man and not a woman, it would have entered any respectable list of films.
In fact, it might have been attacked as a chauvinist film that presents women in a one-dimensional and diminishing way, with murderous fantasies.
Of course, none of this matters.
What is interesting about the opinion of some pen-wielder (and another man) in some small country in the Middle East.
What is important is that over a thousand "experts" from around the world gathered to prove to the world that they are progressive and liberal and therefore decided to add a prominent female film to their list of favorite films, and awarded this bomb of boredom with the title of "the best film of all time".
I didn't believe I would use this term, but yes, that's exactly what "progressive trolling" looks like.
This is how ideology takes over art.
The boy who yelled that the king was naked was deleted today, because it's just not PC anymore to vote for naked kings.
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