Words by Joel Rothery
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), follows the dull life of Belgian widower Jeanne Dielman, painstakingly detailing the domestic labour she must perform to support her son, Sylvian. Within the film, the audience follow Jeanne throughout three days of her life, witnessing her carrying out various domestic tasks. The 3 hour 20 minute runtime of this film can initially feel a little daunting; however, it is unexpectedly hypnotic and still disturbingly relevant. What makes this film even more impressive is that Chantal Akerman was a mere 25 years of age when she directed it.
With Jeanne Dielman recently making its way to the top spot of BFI’s Sight and Sound list (a decennial list that consists of the 250 greatest films of all time) in 2022, dethroning Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The film is no stranger to controversy, as some of the audience reactions at the end of the screening confirmed. However, in an era where the unpaid domestic labour expected from women creates an exhausting toll, this subject has come again to the forefront of feminist ideology. Therefore, Jeanne Dielman has won a well-earned place atop the Sight and Sound list.
It’s easy to wonder whether Akerman was influenced partly by the Italian feminist group ‘Lotta Femminista’, the founders of the first wages for housework campaign in 1974. In an interview when asked about the process of writing the script for Jeanne Dielman, Akerman answered that “it all came very easily of course, because I’d seen it all around me”, suggesting that the film was informed by contemporary feminist ideologies. Intentional or not, a sophisticated understanding of the issues that ‘Lotta Feminista’ shed light upon is present in Jeanne’s character and her daily routine.
Within the film, Jeanne engages in several stereotypical female forms of labour, housework, childcare (of Sylvian and a neighbour’s baby), and sex work (throughout the film Jeanne is visited by three gentlemen suitors, presumably in an effort to supplement her rather meagre widow’s pension). The most prevalent form of labour within the film, as the title may indicate, is domestic labour, stereotypically and disproportionately performed by women. Throughout the film we observe Jeanne completing various household tasks for her son: cooking for him, giving him a generous serving and herself a paltry serving, cleaning for him, and waking him up in the morning.
An hour into the film’s runtime, while at the cobblers to get her son’s shoes repaired, Jeanne confesses to the cobbler when asked about her son, “I’d be lost without him”, revealing an upsetting truth: she views the labour she performs for her son as her sole purpose in life. Even moments the audience initially presumes are for Jeanne’s own enjoyment are quickly revealed to be actions that serve her son. For example, in one scene after dinner, Sylvian reads while Jeanne knits at the dining table. When Jeanne calls Sylvian over to check its size, it’s then revealed that Jeanne is knitting a sweater for him; even her hobbies have been hijacked by Sylvian.
We only observe Sylvian helping his mother with domestic tasks once, but this is minimal and in an instance that solely benefits him (clearing space to deploy a fold-out bed in the front room where he sleeps). Worst of all, Sylvian does not once thank his mother for her sacrifices, hinting that the domestic labour of women is all too often taken for granted, thus rendering it almost invisible. Further, Sylvian takes very little interest in his mother, and any interest he does take is through a masculine lens, whether that is to ask Jeanne about his deceased father, or to impart his offensive views of women and how he would act if he was one.
The majority of interactions we see Jeanne engage in are not for her benefit – she does have a single interaction with a friend but eventually turns down the social engagement her friend proposes. Visiting the cobblers and shops is for her son’s benefit, and visiting the Post Office to post a letter is for her sister’s benefit. The only visit for Jeanne’s benefit is a five-minute trip to a coffee shop, which is one of the very few times we observe her at ease.
Due to the runtime, the film can feel slightly tedious at times, but this is necessary to create a microcosm of the mind-numbing monotony Jeanne faces each day. The film’s extensive runtime allows this to get under the viewer’s skin and create a feeling of increasing discomfort. Jeanne is trapped within her societally imposed prison of domestic labour and a short runtime would not be appropriate to emulate this.
Even within the soundscape, one cannot escape the grating nature of domesticity: the stamping of franking machines, a bread machine slicing, the incessant whirring of a coffee grinder, the prolonged squishing of meat, and the unbearable wailing of a baby perhaps being the most uncomfortable. The runtime and oppressive soundscape combine to create a quite compelling presentation of the horrors of domesticity, making this film scarier than any modern horror blockbuster, especially since the prison of domestic labour is a very real fate for too many women.
However, there is an escape from this prison of domesticity for Jeanne. As the film progresses, we begin to see the delicate façade of Jeanne’s routine fall apart. Towards the end of the film, we observe Jeanne wandering around her house aimlessly after overcooking a pan of potatoes, which she later offers as an explanation for her change in appearance to Sylvian’s remarks. This proves how easily the delicate balance of the routine Sylvian has come to expect from his mother can be disrupted. This simple mistake of overcooking the potatoes is the catalyst for Jeanne’s departure from her well-established routine which leads to the film’s dramatic climax and Jeanne’s quite violent escape from her domestic prison.
In the film’s first hour, after a conversation with Sylvian where he declares, “If I were a woman, I wouldn’t be able to sleep with someone I didn’t love”, Jeanne coldly responds with, “You don’t know, you’re not a woman”. This brief line exposes the film’s purpose; to act as a documentation of the exploitative levels of unpaid domestic labour a capitalistic society demands of women. Perhaps, if Sylvian watched Jeanne Dielman, he would understand not only how much his mother sacrifices for him, but also what, at least in part, it is like to be a woman.
