Eclipse Series 19 - Chantal Akerman in the Seventies - Region 1 DVD

LA CHAMBRE (1972, Silent, 11min): In this early short film, we see the furniture and clutter of one small room in an apartment become the subject of a moving still lifewith Akerman herself staring back at us. This breakthrough formal experiment is the first film the director made in New York. HOTEL MONTEREY (1972, Silent, 62 min): Under Akermans watchful eye, a cheap New York hotel glows with mystery and unexpected beauty, its corridors, elevators, rooms, windows, and occasional tenants framed as though part of an Edward Hopper tableau. NEWS FROM HOME (1976, French w/ English Subs, 89 mins): Letters from Akermans mother are read over a series of elegantly composed shots of 1976 New York, where our (unseen) filmmaker and protagonist has relocated. Akermans unforgettable time capsule of the city is also a gorgeous meditation on urban alienation and personal and familial disconnection. JE TU IL ELLE (1974, B/W, French w/ English Subs, 86 min): In her sexually provocative first feature, Akerman stars as a nameless, rootless young woman who leaves self-imposed isolation to embark on a road trip that leads to lonely love affairs with a male truck driver and a former girlfriend. With its famous real-time sexual encounter and its daring minimalist plot, Je Tu Il Elle is Akermans most audaciously erotic film. LES RENDEZ-VOUS D'ANNA (1978, French w/ English Subs, 127 min): In one of Akermans most penetrating character studies, Anna, an accomplished filmmaker (played by Aurore Clment), makes her way through a series of anonymous European cities to promote her latest movie. Through a succession of eerie, exquisitely shot brief encounterswith men and women, family and strangerswe come to see her emotional and physical detachment from the world.