Woman on the brink of collapse: modernity/struggle, order/gaffe

If it weren't for "Feminist Cinema: Chantal Attaman 70", the screening section of the 4th Yamaichi International Women's Film Festival, I probably would not have been born in the film "Jeanne Dillman". After 45 years of actively opening it, after all, I have no way of guaranteeing whether I can concentrate for a full 201 minutes without watching it in a theater environment, or it is such a special, so-called avant-garde film with no discernible genre elements.

But to my surprise, this movie is not as dull as I imagined. I even thought it was so interesting to spy on the spatial structure of her house. When you enter the door, go straight to the living room, turn right and enter the kitchen on the right. At the end, there is a woman. The main character's room.

In fact, the text of this film is exquisite and orderly (three paragraphs), starting from the burning potato in the evening of the second day (at this time, the film time is almost halfway through), every action of the heroine in the next 100 minutes is Makes me hold my breath.

How Chantal Attaman infused her films with feminism, subversive long takes, endless silence, and the heroine's rich "face" performance at the age of 24 I won't go into details, Ben This article is nothing but the author's impressionistic perception.

1. A wonderful screening accident

It's worth mentioning that at the beginning of "Day 2" of watching this, my computer screen paused to focus on the living room (the subtitles were still playing to match the soundtrack), and I listened to the heroine washing in the kitchen. Shabu Shabu, then went out to repair his son's shoes, met an old friend but declined her proposal to have a cup of coffee together.

Then I began to realize that something was wrong, and when I reopened the film, I found that these scenes had motion pictures. I didn't re-screen this one, because after getting to know her on the first day, I generally knew people like her. Most women do not revolve around other life outside the family, no social and no entertainment.

What a wonderful screening accident, I could hear what she was doing with my eyes closed, I was like her son at home on weekends, slumped on the sofa and stared at the book in my hand , maintain a fixed "camera" habitually ignore all this. The extra camera is unnecessary, because just a long still shot is enough to describe her life.

Of course she was extremely lonely.

2. Modernity and Constraints

It's easy to see the hardships of living as a widow, babysitter, and prostitute, the heroine who washes potatoes and dishes in the same pot, her son's daily snack comes with coffee, a folding bed in the living room, and everywhere she goes The habit of turning off the lights and doing the hygienic tasks of brushing shoes and handling ingredients at the cramped kitchen table require vastly different levels of hygiene, clothes and shoes that need to be repaired rather than bought...

But under such circumstances, she still looks so "modern": the habit of eating beef and coffee, always meticulous hair, elegant French dress, reading newspapers and listening to the radio.

Reminds me of the heroine in "I Am Black" taking two children to receive social welfare, but still wearing fast fashion like H&M, wearing large European and American earrings;

In "Poem", the same poor but still praised grandmother with good clothes.

This is very different from my understanding of the constraints of Chinese-style ideas. If I say too much, it may involve the issue of "post-colonial" images.

3. Order and gaffe

I can even imagine how hard she has struggled to get back to life after her husband passed away (or maybe her husband didn't give her a more decent life than she is now), the habit of placing things, brushing shoes while boiling water How to use the time, how to arrange clients regularly, and careful calculation of every expenditure.

So there are no clocks or communication tools in the movie, she is like a tight/emotionless machine arranging everything in her life in an orderly manner, and of course it is this obsessive-compulsive "order" that makes her life fall apart in an instant , God knows the sudden extra money to buy potatoes will not affect the next life?

Her gaffe hair and buttons, forgetting to turn on the radio, are all reminded by her son, but even the maid who is most used to drinking coffee can temporarily "dereliction of duty", why should she be reminded to return to the track of life?

Maybe she had moments of disappointment before, but she managed to regulate herself. This time, she brewed coffee with the belief that "I don't believe I can't make it today", but her value was as worthless as the coffee that was poured into the sink. She remembered all the "mercurial retrogrades" today. How hard is it to fix a piece of clothing?

The ten (six) years of forbearance urgently need a vent under the audience's "gaze". The baby who did not break the burden is the last tenderness of her motherhood.

She had an uncontrollable orgasm, and her behavior and body were out of her control. After killing the man, she was "living" again. I finally breathed a sigh of relief with the heroine.

This is the story of a woman on the brink of collapse.

can be established at any time.