Les rendez-vous d’Anna
Posted by martinteller on February 19, 2011
Jeanne Dielman is a brilliant film, but it’s awfully challenging. Akerman’s follow-up is perhaps less impressive (or less enigmatic) but more emotionally resonant. Aurore Clément stars as a Belgian director travelling around Europe promoting her latest work, and having a series of encounters (a would-be fling, a friend of the family, a stranger on a train, her mother, her ex-lover). Clément’s performance is not as rich and subtle as Seyrig’s, but it doesn’t need to be. Akerman tells much of Anna’s story through her mise-en-scene, as she is almost constantly seen behind or front of some sort of transparent barrier to the outside world: doors, windows, booths. Much like myself (and perhaps this is why I connected with the movie so well) she’s a person torn between a desire to make human connections and a self-defeating inability to do so. Conversations often play out more like monologues than dialogues, and her responses to affection are as withdrawn as a simple “Oui.” As in JD, Akerman employs a pacing that can sometimes try your patience, and here it seems to be more a stylistic choice than a narrative necessity. However, it’s quite within the limits of tolerability, and it does add a contemplative mood (plus the photography is very nice). Rating: 8
