"Les Rendez-vous d'Anna" is the only film of Chantal Akerman's which I've seen. It is seemingly a highly personal film about a few days in the life of a female Belgian filmmaker who is traveling around Europe showing her latest work. There are long shots of traveling, whether by train, car or taxi, during which...well,nothing really happens. Kind of like real life. The Europe which is observed all looks the same, pretty much - sterile and dispiriting, rather like the Anna's life. Hardly a tree is seen in the whole movie and Anna actually tells her German lover that she doesn't much care for flowers - nature seems to have been blotted out. She has encounters on her travels with a sensitive, handsome German whom she rejects, a long-time friend of her mother's who wants Anna to settle down and marry her son, a German man who has travelled the world and is now decided on living in France which he declares the land of freedom, her mother in Brussels and her Parisian lover. Through all the encounters, Anna remains detached and pretty much a blank slate. She doesn't really seem to know what she is looking for, but it doesn't seem to be commitment of any kind. Clement is purposefully reserved and detached in the lead role, but the people she meets offer opportunities for several sharp well-turned performances, namely from Magali Noel, Lea Massari and Hans Zischler who is great as the rootless traveler searching for "freedom". "Anna" is an interesting, moody film but definitely not for those looking for action or entertainment. If that is your thing, avoid this film like the plague - but if you are a patient viewer who likes to be immersed in a mood and read between the lines, so to speak, this film may appeal to you.
18 Reviews
A bitter but freeing pill
ockiemilkwood18 February 2018
Warning: Spoilers
This is a depleted, feminist critique, an outsider's view, of society from a lesbian director. It is, in its way, a modern, update of Madame Bovary. The director, Chantal Akerman, was a lesbian who married another lesbian, long before identity politics legitimized homosexual marriage. Conventional social relations, esp. heterosexual relations, are poisoned and diseased. People are disconnected.
The movie consists of a series of encounters, of conversations. In the first, Anna, the protagonist (Aurore Clement), kicks a blonde, square-jawed German man, out of her bed because she says, she doesn't love him. He lives in a dreary grey house in a dreary industrial neighborhood with his mother and 5 year-old daughter. His wife, a fellow German, ran away with her passionate lover, a non-Aryan Turk, and never even visits her daughter, thus rejecting marriage, motherhood and German nationality.
A stranger on a train and Anna have a endless, listless conversation, which is decidedly moribund and only vaguely, weakly flirtatious. He is aimlessly wandering the earth, on his way to Paris, like Anna. A dreary landscape rolls on and on outside the train window beside them.
Anna travels extensively, showing her films, and takes men into her bed from sheer loneliness. The only satisfying sex and relief from loneliness she has had, however, was with another woman (a lesbianism recalling the director's) - is this the person in Italy she tries to, but can't reach, by phone throughout the film, as in the first shot? In another conversation, she is uninterested in marrying a man when pressured to do so by his mother, who complains that her own marriage has failed, even as she and her husband have realized their ambitions and become wealthy. This woman has also lost one of her sons, who moved far away to America to become a successful academic. Again, family & marriage don't work in modern society. (The exposition of this film is less than optimal in that it isn't clear who this woman is and what is her exact relationship to Anna.)
Anna travels constantly, pursuing her career (possibly an autobiographical detail from Akerman's own life). A boyfriend left her because she was always gone and he was always waiting for her. She is thus an independent woman who can't be tied down or domesticated, but is isolated by her career and success.
In an unusual but offhand gesture, Anna slips naked into bed with her own mother, who is clothed. This is asexual and purely affectionate. Her nakedness is thus stripped of sexuality, made, instead, into the intimacy of a daughter with her mother, the only human warmth in the movie.
Her present boyfriend (her last encounter) avows he loves her, but, too, suffers her absences. Anna brings him off by hand while he's driving: mechanical, impersonal sex. In a modern hotel room, with a blank TV screen blinking in the corner, we learn that he's world-weary and asthenic, and that he wishes he were a woman, so he could retire to the countryside to give birth to and raise a child. He is an ill, tired man, sick of his life and career, of his social role as a successful, working male.
The movie ends with Anna in the dark, alone in bed, alone in her apartment, repeatedly pressing the buttons of her answering machine, listening to the detached voices of callers. Her social contacts are distant and reduced to the mechanical, like everything else.
Anna is without makeup or adornment (recalling that Clement, as a model, wore no makeup). She eschews feminine wiles. Her face is almost always devoid of expression. She smiles only once in the movie.
At one point Anna stares miserably into the camera, with tears in her eyes. This is the burden a modern woman must bear. This movie is her manifesto.
Colors are all grey and flat earth tones. The movie takes place in winter. Objects of interest are put dead center in the frame, a static, leaden aesthetic. Shots are held for a long time, further deadening the movie. It, too, is moribund, a moribund view of a moribund world.
PS. This movie has left an aftermath. I think of it, feel it inside, days after. It has definitely left a grey mist, a cloud. It's outside, frank vision of sexuality and unhappiness has somehow excused the same in my "soul," relieving me of the tension and anxiety of suppressing it. The movie is a "bring down," yes, a dreary, sad view of life, a bitter pill to swallow, but it is truth and freeing, as art is.
The movie consists of a series of encounters, of conversations. In the first, Anna, the protagonist (Aurore Clement), kicks a blonde, square-jawed German man, out of her bed because she says, she doesn't love him. He lives in a dreary grey house in a dreary industrial neighborhood with his mother and 5 year-old daughter. His wife, a fellow German, ran away with her passionate lover, a non-Aryan Turk, and never even visits her daughter, thus rejecting marriage, motherhood and German nationality.
A stranger on a train and Anna have a endless, listless conversation, which is decidedly moribund and only vaguely, weakly flirtatious. He is aimlessly wandering the earth, on his way to Paris, like Anna. A dreary landscape rolls on and on outside the train window beside them.
Anna travels extensively, showing her films, and takes men into her bed from sheer loneliness. The only satisfying sex and relief from loneliness she has had, however, was with another woman (a lesbianism recalling the director's) - is this the person in Italy she tries to, but can't reach, by phone throughout the film, as in the first shot? In another conversation, she is uninterested in marrying a man when pressured to do so by his mother, who complains that her own marriage has failed, even as she and her husband have realized their ambitions and become wealthy. This woman has also lost one of her sons, who moved far away to America to become a successful academic. Again, family & marriage don't work in modern society. (The exposition of this film is less than optimal in that it isn't clear who this woman is and what is her exact relationship to Anna.)
Anna travels constantly, pursuing her career (possibly an autobiographical detail from Akerman's own life). A boyfriend left her because she was always gone and he was always waiting for her. She is thus an independent woman who can't be tied down or domesticated, but is isolated by her career and success.
In an unusual but offhand gesture, Anna slips naked into bed with her own mother, who is clothed. This is asexual and purely affectionate. Her nakedness is thus stripped of sexuality, made, instead, into the intimacy of a daughter with her mother, the only human warmth in the movie.
Her present boyfriend (her last encounter) avows he loves her, but, too, suffers her absences. Anna brings him off by hand while he's driving: mechanical, impersonal sex. In a modern hotel room, with a blank TV screen blinking in the corner, we learn that he's world-weary and asthenic, and that he wishes he were a woman, so he could retire to the countryside to give birth to and raise a child. He is an ill, tired man, sick of his life and career, of his social role as a successful, working male.
The movie ends with Anna in the dark, alone in bed, alone in her apartment, repeatedly pressing the buttons of her answering machine, listening to the detached voices of callers. Her social contacts are distant and reduced to the mechanical, like everything else.
Anna is without makeup or adornment (recalling that Clement, as a model, wore no makeup). She eschews feminine wiles. Her face is almost always devoid of expression. She smiles only once in the movie.
At one point Anna stares miserably into the camera, with tears in her eyes. This is the burden a modern woman must bear. This movie is her manifesto.
Colors are all grey and flat earth tones. The movie takes place in winter. Objects of interest are put dead center in the frame, a static, leaden aesthetic. Shots are held for a long time, further deadening the movie. It, too, is moribund, a moribund view of a moribund world.
PS. This movie has left an aftermath. I think of it, feel it inside, days after. It has definitely left a grey mist, a cloud. It's outside, frank vision of sexuality and unhappiness has somehow excused the same in my "soul," relieving me of the tension and anxiety of suppressing it. The movie is a "bring down," yes, a dreary, sad view of life, a bitter pill to swallow, but it is truth and freeing, as art is.
Strong use of camera-work to tell an intimate story
runamokprods2 June 2010
Amazingly shot, with the film always demonstrating a tremendous, disciplined use of image to convey mood and story. The film is full of long takes using striking symmetry; the camera is always finding frames within frames. For me, the story itself is interesting intellectually, but does lack emotional power; traveling to a film festival, a young femme filmmaker has a series of sadly empty encounters with people, leading to long, well-written monologues by the various lost souls. Sometimes too on the nose and speechy with its ideas, but always intelligent, physically beautiful film-making. For those with patience and an interest in image as well as story.
moody, filled with loneliness and despair, but very worthwhile film
macrane3 June 2006
Les Rendezvous d'Anna opens with a shot of a train station somewhere in Germany. A woman gets off the train, and she is seen walking slowly to a phone booth, and making a call. The shot is a long one, and the woman is so far in the distance that she can barely be seen at all. This shot establishes the mood of much of the film. I have to admit that, during the first half-hour of this two-hour-plus film, I almost ejected the videocassette and gave up on it. There are many long shots of Anna with her back to the camera, standing and looking out of hotel windows, train windows, at landscapes which are at best industrial. The viewer is tempted to say "OK, I get it; get on with it!" I succumbed to that temptation more than once. If you're willing, though, as I was, to slow down, to settle in to the pace of the film, to stop expecting anything much to happen, there are many rewards for your patience here. Anna is an independent filmmaker; she's on a more-or-less continuous tour of cities to appear at cinemas with her film in an attempt to attract a larger audience. The setting of Chantal Ackerman's film is almost entirely commercial interiors: on trains, in stations, in hotels and hotel rooms. I suspect much of this mirrors Ms. Ackerman's own experience. My first response while watching was to put this film in the same category as 'Last Year at Marienbad,' or 'Hiroshima Mon Amour,' great films, but bleak films. 'Anna' is a bit of a different story, though--the situation is a temporary one; Anna is a creative person out to help sell her work, not simply a symbol for existential angst. Her surroundings are bleak, but she's making sense of it as she can; during the scenes in this film where she interacts with others (two men who don't quite make it as lovers, an older woman, her estranged mother) she comes alive. She listens to people, she talks to them, she's sympathetic; she helps them as much as she can, living in a rootless world. I came away from 'Anna' with a deep sense of involvement with the character; she's still on my mind two days later. Like Anna, I sometimes feel adrift in an alien urban landscape. If you're a lover of European art film, I can recommend this film without reservation.
Unfettered heart
chaos-rampant16 April 2016
I try to not watch the news if I can help it; it plays out like a bad movie, and what bad movies do is they narrow the view. I want to be able to see how things move and how they come to be a certain way in their tide, not their surf. When I do watch the news, like the other week with what happened at Brussels, I'm dismayed at what a frightful place the world can be when gripped by senseless violence and anxious views.
But then unexpectedly the same night I discover a film like this that restores everything back to its original dimensions, the world becomes vast and empty again. Watching it I am reminded that sweet, alert souls are out there who quietly live and create, make sense they give back to us that negates ignorance and need, affirms the simplicity of just being.
It's not in any thing it says one way or another, it has no words of wisdom. It's in how we pass through things, how we observe the passing. It's a process of emptying out so that what remains, hopefully, is the larger, sentient view that regards itself in all these things.
A woman is taking the night train home, it's as simple as this, one of those films where 'nothing happens'. She's a director who was in Berlin to show her movie, a surrogate for Akerman herself. The whole has the intimate tone of moments that were lived through and committed to memory.
The story, what little of it there is, is only here as a way of gathering observations. It's so we can make a few stops on the way home. A man in Berlin whose wife left him and is unsure about what's next, eager to cling to her. Elsewhere she meets an acquaintance from back home who urges her to get married, that she's not getting any younger. The train pulls up at Brussels, she's reunited with her mother for one night and then she's off again.
Eventually there's a lover waiting to pick her up in Paris but even the night they share in a nondescript room offers no haven; he has to be up in a few hours to go to work, she will leave again, transient arrangements for the night. In a marvelous instance she lays naked on top of him but he begins to hurt and she has to go out in a taxi in search of a drugstore.
So 'nothing happens'; I say everything does. You could shape each encounter into its own film with its own drama, here it is all distilled to a few exchanges. The woman listens without judgment or advice, they say what's on their mind, then they part again, anxieties dispersing. She's not unaffected herself, we note, but she moves without need.
It's all simple here, simple in the Japanese Buddhist sense that recognizes the transience of things without suffering, the suffering without attachment, emptiness where not a single thing is redundant or missing. A different thing from just modern lack. Buddhism isn't about renouncing reality as often misconstrued, it's about renouncing ego and craving so that you are free to return; not about resting above suffering but resting in the middle of it.
It's all here. No elephant art for this woman, no grandiose meaning, and yet it's all here in the sketches of the transient world, the meaning all in how we see with an eye that is coming back to the beginning.
Something to meditate upon.
But then unexpectedly the same night I discover a film like this that restores everything back to its original dimensions, the world becomes vast and empty again. Watching it I am reminded that sweet, alert souls are out there who quietly live and create, make sense they give back to us that negates ignorance and need, affirms the simplicity of just being.
It's not in any thing it says one way or another, it has no words of wisdom. It's in how we pass through things, how we observe the passing. It's a process of emptying out so that what remains, hopefully, is the larger, sentient view that regards itself in all these things.
A woman is taking the night train home, it's as simple as this, one of those films where 'nothing happens'. She's a director who was in Berlin to show her movie, a surrogate for Akerman herself. The whole has the intimate tone of moments that were lived through and committed to memory.
The story, what little of it there is, is only here as a way of gathering observations. It's so we can make a few stops on the way home. A man in Berlin whose wife left him and is unsure about what's next, eager to cling to her. Elsewhere she meets an acquaintance from back home who urges her to get married, that she's not getting any younger. The train pulls up at Brussels, she's reunited with her mother for one night and then she's off again.
Eventually there's a lover waiting to pick her up in Paris but even the night they share in a nondescript room offers no haven; he has to be up in a few hours to go to work, she will leave again, transient arrangements for the night. In a marvelous instance she lays naked on top of him but he begins to hurt and she has to go out in a taxi in search of a drugstore.
So 'nothing happens'; I say everything does. You could shape each encounter into its own film with its own drama, here it is all distilled to a few exchanges. The woman listens without judgment or advice, they say what's on their mind, then they part again, anxieties dispersing. She's not unaffected herself, we note, but she moves without need.
It's all simple here, simple in the Japanese Buddhist sense that recognizes the transience of things without suffering, the suffering without attachment, emptiness where not a single thing is redundant or missing. A different thing from just modern lack. Buddhism isn't about renouncing reality as often misconstrued, it's about renouncing ego and craving so that you are free to return; not about resting above suffering but resting in the middle of it.
It's all here. No elephant art for this woman, no grandiose meaning, and yet it's all here in the sketches of the transient world, the meaning all in how we see with an eye that is coming back to the beginning.
Something to meditate upon.
A long winded, but worthwhile ride
lwtuajd9 December 2009
At the end of the 'French new wave' era, it seemed European directors were looking to make films more based on emotion and human interaction. This film is really a collection of stories that the viewer pieces together to understand the full story of the main character, Anna. What is wonderful is how the stories or 'meetings' are so contrasting in terms of emotion, yet all seem so natural and all are very relevant in order for us to understand just who Anna is. No doubt it is a film that requires patience, but that seems to be the very point, like Anna the viewer must be patient. It may be speckled with scenes of joy and nostalgia, but for the most part it is an alienating tale showing all to well that with success comes a price of some sort.
Lonelines....
Jithindurden7 November 2017
My first impression on The Meetings of Anna was that Lost in Translation directed by a gloomy Wes Anderson. This is my first Akerman, so I didn't know what to expect from this. The more I think about it it feels like this is the kind of film that grows on you as time passes. The loneliness of Anna all the while everyone she meets is opening up to her although she always seeming distant was quite relatable. There are so many choices that life offers you, but you are confused and miserable so that you reject all that and yearns for something you don't know yet or something you are denying. I saw it a couple of days ago but it has a deeper impression on me now since it has been in my head for these days.
Things move very slowly in Chantal Akerman's films
Red-12524 September 2020
Les rendez-vous d'Anna (1978) was written and directed by Chantal Akerman.
Aurore Clément stars as Anna Silver, a movie director who is traveling through Europe to promote the opening of her latest film.
First, we have to establish the fact that Clément is tall and elegant, and looks like a model. There's no rule that movie directors can't be attractive, so that works in the film.
However, directors tend to make things happen. They are forceful, because they have to be. This is doubly true for women directors. Anna Silver is aloof, distant, and appears to drift from one city to the next without connecting with anyone else.
Second, Chantal Akerman has her own style, and either you accept it or you don't. The trip by train from Cologne to Brussels is 3 1/2 hours long. Anna is bored, and we're bored during the trip. Akerman doesn't care--she shows us the train trip for a long time.
At one point Anna has to leave her hotel in Paris to find an all-night pharmacy. It's not a true emergency--she just needs some medication for a friend. Any other director would show the protagonist leaving the hotel, entering and leaving the pharmacy, and returning to the hotel. Not Akerman. We follow the taxi driving through the dark wet streets of Paris for at least ten minutes. Then Anna gets the medication and goes back to the hotel.
I respect Akerman as a director, and enjoy watching her movies. However, I have to admit that her filmmaking is an acquired taste.
This movie worked well on the small screen. It came as part of Criterion series 19--Chantal Akerman in the Seventies.
The film has a solid IMDb rating of 7.4. I agreed, and rated it 7.
P.S. Look for the Italian actor Lea Masari in a small supporting role as Anna's mother. Masari was only 45 when she played the role. She looked more like Anna's sister.
Aurore Clément stars as Anna Silver, a movie director who is traveling through Europe to promote the opening of her latest film.
First, we have to establish the fact that Clément is tall and elegant, and looks like a model. There's no rule that movie directors can't be attractive, so that works in the film.
However, directors tend to make things happen. They are forceful, because they have to be. This is doubly true for women directors. Anna Silver is aloof, distant, and appears to drift from one city to the next without connecting with anyone else.
Second, Chantal Akerman has her own style, and either you accept it or you don't. The trip by train from Cologne to Brussels is 3 1/2 hours long. Anna is bored, and we're bored during the trip. Akerman doesn't care--she shows us the train trip for a long time.
At one point Anna has to leave her hotel in Paris to find an all-night pharmacy. It's not a true emergency--she just needs some medication for a friend. Any other director would show the protagonist leaving the hotel, entering and leaving the pharmacy, and returning to the hotel. Not Akerman. We follow the taxi driving through the dark wet streets of Paris for at least ten minutes. Then Anna gets the medication and goes back to the hotel.
I respect Akerman as a director, and enjoy watching her movies. However, I have to admit that her filmmaking is an acquired taste.
This movie worked well on the small screen. It came as part of Criterion series 19--Chantal Akerman in the Seventies.
The film has a solid IMDb rating of 7.4. I agreed, and rated it 7.
P.S. Look for the Italian actor Lea Masari in a small supporting role as Anna's mother. Masari was only 45 when she played the role. She looked more like Anna's sister.
Where Intellectual Honesty meets Despair
robbybonfire27 January 2013
When a single woman, in her early 30's with plain features - starting with expressionless eyes and thin lips unadorned by cosmetics, attempts to deal with people in her professional career world of film-making, in her personal world of family, and with her few, select friends, her inability to ignite a spark of spontaneity in even the most casual social encounters foreordains a shallow, isolated existence from which there can be no respite.
At no time are we given a hint as to why this young woman has become traumatized and de-sensitized to the point where her inter-personal responsiveness is mechanical and roboticized, and to where she is so emotionally-blocked she cannot even return a wave from a man who befriended her on a train trip from Cologne to Brussels, just walking out of his life as though they had not spent several hours in mutual soul-searching for a meaning in life beyond mere existence and attending to business matters. And to where, when her brief visit with her mother at a train station, and overnight in a hotel room, ends with her mother pleading with her to say "I love you," she coldly obliges, but then, instead of the natural follow-up of a shared hug, she just turns around and walks out of her mother's life for another extended period of separation.
Even given Anna's embarrassing lack of social communications skills she does have some redeeming positive qualities, starting with two of the most important attributes anyone can have and outwardly convey - honesty and integrity. This is a real person with inner contentment and the confidence to let the world in and see her as she truly is, which is consistent from the inner soul to the outer countenance, with no cosmetics and no theatrical affectations - just as earthy and unassuming as a human being can possibly be. And while she never projects in dress, speech, or manner the contemporary, overt "sensuality" to which her generation of young women routinely aspires, she seems comfortable with her ample female physical endowments in her two sexual encounters with males she dallies with, one a "ships in the night" encounter with a German man, the other with her current lover who is based in Paris, and who becomes physically ill as a result of her ascerbic verbal rejoinders, at the expense of failing to consummate their fleeting and perhaps final romantic tryst.
Because the protagonist in this film appears completely detached from societal conventions and contemporary behavioral patterns, this film elicits a pallor of honesty and in-depth psychological reflection far beyond the superficial treatment accorded most cinematic leading ladies. It takes guts to produce such a mundane subject matter film without succumbing to the temptation to over-reach and titillate the mature audience this starkly depressing material is intended for.
Well worth viewing on a repeat basis, if simply because Sigmund Freud would have had a "field day" analyzing the eccentricities of such a complex and disturbed soul as this one.
********
At no time are we given a hint as to why this young woman has become traumatized and de-sensitized to the point where her inter-personal responsiveness is mechanical and roboticized, and to where she is so emotionally-blocked she cannot even return a wave from a man who befriended her on a train trip from Cologne to Brussels, just walking out of his life as though they had not spent several hours in mutual soul-searching for a meaning in life beyond mere existence and attending to business matters. And to where, when her brief visit with her mother at a train station, and overnight in a hotel room, ends with her mother pleading with her to say "I love you," she coldly obliges, but then, instead of the natural follow-up of a shared hug, she just turns around and walks out of her mother's life for another extended period of separation.
Even given Anna's embarrassing lack of social communications skills she does have some redeeming positive qualities, starting with two of the most important attributes anyone can have and outwardly convey - honesty and integrity. This is a real person with inner contentment and the confidence to let the world in and see her as she truly is, which is consistent from the inner soul to the outer countenance, with no cosmetics and no theatrical affectations - just as earthy and unassuming as a human being can possibly be. And while she never projects in dress, speech, or manner the contemporary, overt "sensuality" to which her generation of young women routinely aspires, she seems comfortable with her ample female physical endowments in her two sexual encounters with males she dallies with, one a "ships in the night" encounter with a German man, the other with her current lover who is based in Paris, and who becomes physically ill as a result of her ascerbic verbal rejoinders, at the expense of failing to consummate their fleeting and perhaps final romantic tryst.
Because the protagonist in this film appears completely detached from societal conventions and contemporary behavioral patterns, this film elicits a pallor of honesty and in-depth psychological reflection far beyond the superficial treatment accorded most cinematic leading ladies. It takes guts to produce such a mundane subject matter film without succumbing to the temptation to over-reach and titillate the mature audience this starkly depressing material is intended for.
Well worth viewing on a repeat basis, if simply because Sigmund Freud would have had a "field day" analyzing the eccentricities of such a complex and disturbed soul as this one.
********
THE MINUTES FLY LIKE HOURS.
mmwea18 June 2019
Brilliant, superbly crafted low-key drama
I_Ailurophile28 April 2023
Long, unmoving, precise and artistic shots; substantial quiet, and no music; dialogue ranging from unnaturally verbose and explanatory or direct to mundanely matter-of-fact and plainspoken; scene writing that joins the dialogue in being curiously dry and detached, at once personal and detached; performances as low-key as the overall tone is subdued: this is definitely a Chantal Akerman picture. Certainly she's not the only filmmaker to have employed such a style, and indeed at various points one recognizes tinges of comparable styles of other filmmakers. Yet as if her celebrated 'Jeanne Dielman' in 1975 hadn't cemented her panache for minimalist but masterful movie-making, and her penchant for hushed, idiosyncratically understated storytelling, this 1978 feature aptly accentuates these notions while trying a few slightly different ideas. For all this, I can understand how the title won't appeal to all comers, above all since on the surface there is very little happening over these two hours. Yet if one watches and listens attentively, as with Akerman's other works there are substantial, substantive depths that become more evident and more flavorful over time. 'Les rendez-vous d'Anna' is perhaps an acquired taste, but for those ready and willing to actively engage, it's a softly striking, rewarding viewing experience that's well worth exploring.
Akerman is a filmmaker whose tremendous skill and success lies in her absolute grasp of and proficiency in subtlety. All those outward qualities, that to the uninitiated or unprepared may come off as awkward or lacking, are part and parcel of a grand if decidedly underhanded vision. Thoughts broached in the dialogue - specifically as to personal relationships or musings on Europe in the aftermath of World War II - are obliquely echoed and amplified in the fundamental construction of the movie; for Akerman storytelling and film-making are emphatically one and the same, and that is proven again here just as surely as it was three years prior. Themes of loneliness, isolation, dispassionate malaise, and social and psychological struggles with communication, and a broad sense of undefinable hardship, are reflected in how characters are arranged in a scene, and where they face, especially as they talk to each other or touch; the camera may pointedly center only a single character for most if not all of a conversation, even when their scene partner is speaking. The themes are reflected in the transient nature of scenes, and the limited time that characters have on-screen with protagonist Anna; in passing sights of largely empty settings; in the almost completely static, stationary cinematography, that subsequently evokes a feeling of disconnected solitude. Even the relative noiselessness, and the restrained acting, lend to airs of separation, and being apart, and intangible distance. All this, to say nothing of the particulars of the writing in every regard.
And despite the overarching tenor, let there be no doubt that 'Les rendez-vous d'Anna' is superbly crafted, with capability, care, and passion belying all that the title portends. "Excellence" is the word of the day across the board when it comes to filming locations, production design and art direction, costume design, hair and makeup, and sound design. Muted as Jean Penzer's photography is, it's deftly calculated and smartly executed; Francine Sandberg's editing comes off as comparatively relaxed, yet is obviously characterized by no less intelligence. Even with the feature's tack being what it is, the abilities of the cast unquestionably shine through with admirable, controlled nuance and range, impressing all the more for consideration of that self-discipline. Naturally star Aurore Clément stands out most as protagonist Anna, but those in supporting parts are just as terrific, not least Lea Massari and Jean-Pierre Cassel.; what the actors are able to achieve under these conditions is kind of incredible. Above all, Akelman's gentle but meticulous direction and her wonderfully sharp writing are both frankly outstanding, a stupendous delight as a viewer both for how much significant thought was poured into them individually, and for the complexity with which they are interconnected. Not to again draw comparison, but as with 'Jeanne Dielman,' Akerman shows such a mind for shot composition and intricacy in conjuring and realizing scenes that it almost feels as though she had mapped out the entirety of the runtime down to the second.
Once more, I totally get how this won't sit well with all audiences. Akerman operates with such a majorly delicate hand in every capacity that one must most assuredly be receptive to such fare or else the entirety will come across as a whole lot of nothing. For those who are willing to put in a bit of work themselves to get the most out of movies, however, the profit to be had here is exceptional. 'Les rendez-vous d'Anna' is rich, absorbing, satisfying, rewarding - and maybe even a tad haunting in the ideas at play. Though best suggested for what is no doubt a relatively niche audience, as far as I'm concerned this earns a very high, hearty recommendation, and it's well worth seeking out if one has the chance. Well done!
Akerman is a filmmaker whose tremendous skill and success lies in her absolute grasp of and proficiency in subtlety. All those outward qualities, that to the uninitiated or unprepared may come off as awkward or lacking, are part and parcel of a grand if decidedly underhanded vision. Thoughts broached in the dialogue - specifically as to personal relationships or musings on Europe in the aftermath of World War II - are obliquely echoed and amplified in the fundamental construction of the movie; for Akerman storytelling and film-making are emphatically one and the same, and that is proven again here just as surely as it was three years prior. Themes of loneliness, isolation, dispassionate malaise, and social and psychological struggles with communication, and a broad sense of undefinable hardship, are reflected in how characters are arranged in a scene, and where they face, especially as they talk to each other or touch; the camera may pointedly center only a single character for most if not all of a conversation, even when their scene partner is speaking. The themes are reflected in the transient nature of scenes, and the limited time that characters have on-screen with protagonist Anna; in passing sights of largely empty settings; in the almost completely static, stationary cinematography, that subsequently evokes a feeling of disconnected solitude. Even the relative noiselessness, and the restrained acting, lend to airs of separation, and being apart, and intangible distance. All this, to say nothing of the particulars of the writing in every regard.
And despite the overarching tenor, let there be no doubt that 'Les rendez-vous d'Anna' is superbly crafted, with capability, care, and passion belying all that the title portends. "Excellence" is the word of the day across the board when it comes to filming locations, production design and art direction, costume design, hair and makeup, and sound design. Muted as Jean Penzer's photography is, it's deftly calculated and smartly executed; Francine Sandberg's editing comes off as comparatively relaxed, yet is obviously characterized by no less intelligence. Even with the feature's tack being what it is, the abilities of the cast unquestionably shine through with admirable, controlled nuance and range, impressing all the more for consideration of that self-discipline. Naturally star Aurore Clément stands out most as protagonist Anna, but those in supporting parts are just as terrific, not least Lea Massari and Jean-Pierre Cassel.; what the actors are able to achieve under these conditions is kind of incredible. Above all, Akelman's gentle but meticulous direction and her wonderfully sharp writing are both frankly outstanding, a stupendous delight as a viewer both for how much significant thought was poured into them individually, and for the complexity with which they are interconnected. Not to again draw comparison, but as with 'Jeanne Dielman,' Akerman shows such a mind for shot composition and intricacy in conjuring and realizing scenes that it almost feels as though she had mapped out the entirety of the runtime down to the second.
Once more, I totally get how this won't sit well with all audiences. Akerman operates with such a majorly delicate hand in every capacity that one must most assuredly be receptive to such fare or else the entirety will come across as a whole lot of nothing. For those who are willing to put in a bit of work themselves to get the most out of movies, however, the profit to be had here is exceptional. 'Les rendez-vous d'Anna' is rich, absorbing, satisfying, rewarding - and maybe even a tad haunting in the ideas at play. Though best suggested for what is no doubt a relatively niche audience, as far as I'm concerned this earns a very high, hearty recommendation, and it's well worth seeking out if one has the chance. Well done!
Images Of Dull Despair
boblipton19 January 2020
Aurore Clément, playing a movie director wandering around Europe, showing off her latest picture, has a series of encounters with individuals.
I looked at this movie on Turner Classic Movies, and it was preceded by the hosts praising it because of the fact that nothing of interest happened in the first half hour. This showed, they claimed, the patience of Chantal Akerman as a film maker. This made me think of my effort last year, to read the written works of the Roman jurist and politician Cicero. I had gotten about a fifth of the way through his collected works, and had begun his writings on writing. In it, he claimed that it was a good idea to bore the readers at first, so that later, when the writing became interesting, they would become fascinated by the difference. Thinking about this, I wondered when the writing would become better, and was it worth it. I put the book down, picked up something else to read, and have no plans of going back to Cicero, despite his importance in the history of law.
Which is pretty much how I have come to feel about Akerman, after seeing five of her movies. She chronicles boredom and apathy. She uses interminable long takes, and here, all the shots are dully symmetric, and the performers very low in affect. Everyone starts out miserable and, despite occasional bouts of sex, remains so.
There are those who claim her work is key in the development of minimalism. I claim that a motion picture should incorporate motion, not just of the observable variety, but of the spiritual sort. There's none of that here, and the the effort to chronicle ennui is boring. If nothing happens, if the situation is dull, then who is to be interested in it, except people so desperate for novelty that they will tolerate boredom, thinking "Well, at least no one has tried this before!"
If that's your idea of a good time, I suggest you go watch paint dry. But wait until it's been on the walls for some time.
I looked at this movie on Turner Classic Movies, and it was preceded by the hosts praising it because of the fact that nothing of interest happened in the first half hour. This showed, they claimed, the patience of Chantal Akerman as a film maker. This made me think of my effort last year, to read the written works of the Roman jurist and politician Cicero. I had gotten about a fifth of the way through his collected works, and had begun his writings on writing. In it, he claimed that it was a good idea to bore the readers at first, so that later, when the writing became interesting, they would become fascinated by the difference. Thinking about this, I wondered when the writing would become better, and was it worth it. I put the book down, picked up something else to read, and have no plans of going back to Cicero, despite his importance in the history of law.
Which is pretty much how I have come to feel about Akerman, after seeing five of her movies. She chronicles boredom and apathy. She uses interminable long takes, and here, all the shots are dully symmetric, and the performers very low in affect. Everyone starts out miserable and, despite occasional bouts of sex, remains so.
There are those who claim her work is key in the development of minimalism. I claim that a motion picture should incorporate motion, not just of the observable variety, but of the spiritual sort. There's none of that here, and the the effort to chronicle ennui is boring. If nothing happens, if the situation is dull, then who is to be interested in it, except people so desperate for novelty that they will tolerate boredom, thinking "Well, at least no one has tried this before!"
If that's your idea of a good time, I suggest you go watch paint dry. But wait until it's been on the walls for some time.
Pure cinema with time to reflect.
botavuan14 January 2023
Unlike most reviewers I did not see this as a movie about loneliness but a film about independence, not least the independence of Akerman herself to take wonderfully long, slow shots. The wonderfully-long train-sequences (mostly and significantly, a stopping-train from Moscow to Paris via Cologne and Brussels) are the best that I have ever seen and are rich with unusual shots and details.
I didn't feel that Aurore was traumatised or desensitised. I felt that she moved through this film rather in the way I move through my days: as an interested onlooker . I really identified with her; I was captivated. I'd say that it is one of my favourite movies, and I am going to watch it, revel in it, again tonight.
Another reviewer has pointed out how the 'meetings', rendezvous or encounters (with both men and women) are so very contrasting in terms of emotion, while flowing along (passing through railway stations) and seeming so natural.
The bleak, treeless, sub-industrial, suburban landscapes are underlined by continual background noise of traffic and railways, which starts off being intrusive. By the end of the film, however, we hardly notice it - just as city-dwellers blot it out all the time 'in real life'. Aurore makes an almost serene (or at least unreactive) journey through the physical and moral wasteland left by the second world war and re-industrialisation, the spiritual bleakness of consumerism.
The final sequence is a radio-play of answering-machine messages which show that this very independent, creative woman is little more than a cog in a relentless social machine.
As a comment on inner experience seen as outer life, it is as good as Samuel Beckett - and less pretentious than Béla Tarr. Indeed, it is the unpretentiousness of this film which makes it special, and specially 'unmasculine'. It is immersive 'pure cinema' that gives you time to think (and be yourself) while watching.
I didn't feel that Aurore was traumatised or desensitised. I felt that she moved through this film rather in the way I move through my days: as an interested onlooker . I really identified with her; I was captivated. I'd say that it is one of my favourite movies, and I am going to watch it, revel in it, again tonight.
Another reviewer has pointed out how the 'meetings', rendezvous or encounters (with both men and women) are so very contrasting in terms of emotion, while flowing along (passing through railway stations) and seeming so natural.
The bleak, treeless, sub-industrial, suburban landscapes are underlined by continual background noise of traffic and railways, which starts off being intrusive. By the end of the film, however, we hardly notice it - just as city-dwellers blot it out all the time 'in real life'. Aurore makes an almost serene (or at least unreactive) journey through the physical and moral wasteland left by the second world war and re-industrialisation, the spiritual bleakness of consumerism.
The final sequence is a radio-play of answering-machine messages which show that this very independent, creative woman is little more than a cog in a relentless social machine.
As a comment on inner experience seen as outer life, it is as good as Samuel Beckett - and less pretentious than Béla Tarr. Indeed, it is the unpretentiousness of this film which makes it special, and specially 'unmasculine'. It is immersive 'pure cinema' that gives you time to think (and be yourself) while watching.
Languid tale of alienation from experimental art house director still shows accomplished cinematography
Turfseer6 September 2020
Warning: Spoilers
If you're a bit perplexed about Les-Rendezvous d'Anna, it is instructive to know something first about the director, Chantal Akerman. Back in the early 70s, Akerman, a French-speaking native of Belgium, spent two years in NYC. She often frequented the Anthology Film Archives, known as the premiere arthouse "experimental' cinema where experimental filmmakers such as Akerman would hone their craft and mix with other aficionados of the offbeat, arthouse "hipster" scene. Akerman is considered even today as a pioneer feminist filmmaker with affiliations with the lesbian community. In fact, her first big success, Jeanne Dielman, was shot on a shoestring with an all-female crew. In 1978, when Les-Rendezvous d'Anna was shot, Akerman was criticized by some feminists for working with a largely all-male crew. Throughout her career, Akerman eschewed being labeled a feminist or lesbian filmmaker and simply wanted to be recognized for her craft, rather than any sexual preference.
Akerman's films are characterized by long takes and camera angles chiefly involving centering of her subjects on the screen. There is a certain symmetry to her cinematography, which is really her strong suit. Akerman often revels in the mundane (for example, toward the end of "Les-rendezvous," she spends an inordinate amount of time with her protagonist, Anne Silver (Aurore Clément), a Belgian film director (undoubtedly modeled on Akerman herself), as she travels to a pharmacy to pick up medicine for her ex-lover who has taken ill. Then there are the aforementioned long takes, which frustratingly appear throughout the film (right away, one finds oneself fidgeting with the over long opening static take inside a train station as passengers disembark).
Akerman is not concerned so much with narrative in her film; in fact, her later documentaries were chiefly unscripted-she simply filmed what she encountered. In her narrative films, she has no problem with dialogue, but often the characters end up speaking in drawn out monologues, In Les-Rendezvous, the characters all suffer from being alienated (particularly, her film director protagonist). Indeed, Anna Silver, is very much a "cold fish" throughout, choosing to let others ramble on and on, while she takes in what they're saying. Her first "rendezvous" is with a West German man whom she meets after one of her film screenings in Cologne. He's a sensitive man whose wife left him and he now takes care of his young daughter. A one-night stand with Anna ends unsuccessfully after Anna calls it off in the middle of love-making (apparently she feels it's pointless since she doesn't love this man, despite his apparent sensitivity).
Additional encounters transpire, with Anna displaying detachment and a lack of emotion throughout. There is an older woman from Belgium who takes Anna to task for failing to get married to her son after she called off the engagement twice. There's a man on the train, a German who's spent his entire life trying to find himself, now headed for a new life in Paris. Anna's most significant encounter is with her mother (Lea Massari) whom she hasn't seen in quite awhile. They end up sharing a bed together at a hotel (not in a sexual way), where Anna confesses that she had a lesbian relationship which also did not lead anywhere. The encounter with her mother is perhaps the only time during the narrative, that Anna opens up at all.
The film ends with Anna's final encounter with the ex-lover-the one who takes sick and whom she helps obtain some medicine. Anna retires to her apartment where she answers a series of messages on her answering machine.
What Akerman apparently lacked was the ability to develop conflict between characters. As previously mentioned, there is a reliance on monologue to move the story along but decidedly not a whiff of suspense. Those who like these "experimental" type of films are more enamored with the atmosphere, established by the director's technical expertise. Ultimately, however, the ability to ramp up the conflict in a film, is perhaps one of the most important aspects of engaging screenwriting. Akerman deserved accolades for her very accomplished cinematography, but ultimately it was the nature of her detached world view that prevented her from reaching greater heights in cinematic direction.
Akerman spent her life extremely attached to her mother, a Holocaust survivor. When her mother passed away in 2014, Akerman ended up taking her own life a year later, presumably because the bond she had with her mother was now irretrievably lost.
Akerman's films are characterized by long takes and camera angles chiefly involving centering of her subjects on the screen. There is a certain symmetry to her cinematography, which is really her strong suit. Akerman often revels in the mundane (for example, toward the end of "Les-rendezvous," she spends an inordinate amount of time with her protagonist, Anne Silver (Aurore Clément), a Belgian film director (undoubtedly modeled on Akerman herself), as she travels to a pharmacy to pick up medicine for her ex-lover who has taken ill. Then there are the aforementioned long takes, which frustratingly appear throughout the film (right away, one finds oneself fidgeting with the over long opening static take inside a train station as passengers disembark).
Akerman is not concerned so much with narrative in her film; in fact, her later documentaries were chiefly unscripted-she simply filmed what she encountered. In her narrative films, she has no problem with dialogue, but often the characters end up speaking in drawn out monologues, In Les-Rendezvous, the characters all suffer from being alienated (particularly, her film director protagonist). Indeed, Anna Silver, is very much a "cold fish" throughout, choosing to let others ramble on and on, while she takes in what they're saying. Her first "rendezvous" is with a West German man whom she meets after one of her film screenings in Cologne. He's a sensitive man whose wife left him and he now takes care of his young daughter. A one-night stand with Anna ends unsuccessfully after Anna calls it off in the middle of love-making (apparently she feels it's pointless since she doesn't love this man, despite his apparent sensitivity).
Additional encounters transpire, with Anna displaying detachment and a lack of emotion throughout. There is an older woman from Belgium who takes Anna to task for failing to get married to her son after she called off the engagement twice. There's a man on the train, a German who's spent his entire life trying to find himself, now headed for a new life in Paris. Anna's most significant encounter is with her mother (Lea Massari) whom she hasn't seen in quite awhile. They end up sharing a bed together at a hotel (not in a sexual way), where Anna confesses that she had a lesbian relationship which also did not lead anywhere. The encounter with her mother is perhaps the only time during the narrative, that Anna opens up at all.
The film ends with Anna's final encounter with the ex-lover-the one who takes sick and whom she helps obtain some medicine. Anna retires to her apartment where she answers a series of messages on her answering machine.
What Akerman apparently lacked was the ability to develop conflict between characters. As previously mentioned, there is a reliance on monologue to move the story along but decidedly not a whiff of suspense. Those who like these "experimental" type of films are more enamored with the atmosphere, established by the director's technical expertise. Ultimately, however, the ability to ramp up the conflict in a film, is perhaps one of the most important aspects of engaging screenwriting. Akerman deserved accolades for her very accomplished cinematography, but ultimately it was the nature of her detached world view that prevented her from reaching greater heights in cinematic direction.
Akerman spent her life extremely attached to her mother, a Holocaust survivor. When her mother passed away in 2014, Akerman ended up taking her own life a year later, presumably because the bond she had with her mother was now irretrievably lost.
If this was made today it would be a YouTube vlog
Tin_ear22 September 2019
Was a time when topics like bisexuality, biological clocks, loneliness, female identity, or diversity in filmmaking were cutting-edge stuff. Clearly that was a long time ago, and when you ignore those worn-out taboos and take a really hard look at this movie it's just a really boring travelogue. Call it Lenny Bruce syndrome. I guess you had to be there to get it.
The film hinges on a single character, and I didn't find her remotely interesting. We don't know much about her other than she is lonely. We don't know about her politics, her art, her opinions on anything, her flaws, her appeal...there's nothing to the character. She's a bland ice queen that attracts a multitude of people without trying, a super competent character who doesn't face any struggle, a supposedly internationally famous artist who doesn't seem very good at communicating with other people or has anything insightful to say. Why should I care about this person?
Unfortunately this film suffers from the lingering influence of Antonioni and others from sixties art-house cinema where the camera lingers ten minutes on literally nothing, because evidently five minutes of nothing was insufficient to build the mood of ennui. The same exact mood that the other 150 minutes creates in the same way.
The film hinges on a single character, and I didn't find her remotely interesting. We don't know much about her other than she is lonely. We don't know about her politics, her art, her opinions on anything, her flaws, her appeal...there's nothing to the character. She's a bland ice queen that attracts a multitude of people without trying, a super competent character who doesn't face any struggle, a supposedly internationally famous artist who doesn't seem very good at communicating with other people or has anything insightful to say. Why should I care about this person?
Unfortunately this film suffers from the lingering influence of Antonioni and others from sixties art-house cinema where the camera lingers ten minutes on literally nothing, because evidently five minutes of nothing was insufficient to build the mood of ennui. The same exact mood that the other 150 minutes creates in the same way.
Frustrating
anasazi-145-68212723 September 2019
Starts strong, then stagnates
evening130 November 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Anna epitomizes enigmatic in this grim portrait of a depressed and withdrawn film director.
Played by Aurore Clement, Anna is so dour and laconic that one marvels she is capable of creating art, but perhaps it is her ability to focus and listen that enables her to perform such duties. She does practically nothing but listen in this talky production.
I thought this movie was going to be significantly better when I observed Anna's interactions, early on, with the needy, heart-on-his-sleeve Helmut (Heinrich Schneider), whose wife had left him for a Turk. We see here the extent of Anna's detachment -- she can't even admit to liking flowers. In the pair's awkward exchange, director Chantal Akerman nails the kind of situation in a which a guy is ready to commit to a woman while understanding absolutely nothing about her.
The film also excels in its depiction of Anna's meeting with Ida (Magali Noel), mother of a guy with whom Anna has broken two engagements sans explanation. "Why write each other if you don't love each other?" Ida sensibly asks. "Let others write." And how!
Subsequently, however, we are seriously let down during extended, mopey shots of Anna on a train, interacting with a guy who speaks monotonously of his travels and the ways of railroads (i.e., "They're uncoupling the cars.") Who gives a fig?
The movie proceeds to show Anna's strange interactions with her mother (Lea Massari), with whom she crawls into bed naked and discusses sex she has had with a woman. We also observe her hook-up with depressed Daniel (Jean-Pierre Cassel) -- "You march on, or you die" -- who anticipates having sex with Anna, only to become suddenly ill and rejecting of her overtures. At one point, Anna actually smiles as she sings this drip a song, however, the point of it all is totally unclear.
I read on Wikipedia that Ms. Akerman was the child of Holocaust survivors who killed herself at age 65. One wonders how much of "Anna" might have been autobiographical.
Instead of this extremely uneven production, I'd recommend Ms. Akerman's "Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" as a far better example of her work. It's a kind of horror film set in the unlikeliest of locales.
Played by Aurore Clement, Anna is so dour and laconic that one marvels she is capable of creating art, but perhaps it is her ability to focus and listen that enables her to perform such duties. She does practically nothing but listen in this talky production.
I thought this movie was going to be significantly better when I observed Anna's interactions, early on, with the needy, heart-on-his-sleeve Helmut (Heinrich Schneider), whose wife had left him for a Turk. We see here the extent of Anna's detachment -- she can't even admit to liking flowers. In the pair's awkward exchange, director Chantal Akerman nails the kind of situation in a which a guy is ready to commit to a woman while understanding absolutely nothing about her.
The film also excels in its depiction of Anna's meeting with Ida (Magali Noel), mother of a guy with whom Anna has broken two engagements sans explanation. "Why write each other if you don't love each other?" Ida sensibly asks. "Let others write." And how!
Subsequently, however, we are seriously let down during extended, mopey shots of Anna on a train, interacting with a guy who speaks monotonously of his travels and the ways of railroads (i.e., "They're uncoupling the cars.") Who gives a fig?
The movie proceeds to show Anna's strange interactions with her mother (Lea Massari), with whom she crawls into bed naked and discusses sex she has had with a woman. We also observe her hook-up with depressed Daniel (Jean-Pierre Cassel) -- "You march on, or you die" -- who anticipates having sex with Anna, only to become suddenly ill and rejecting of her overtures. At one point, Anna actually smiles as she sings this drip a song, however, the point of it all is totally unclear.
I read on Wikipedia that Ms. Akerman was the child of Holocaust survivors who killed herself at age 65. One wonders how much of "Anna" might have been autobiographical.
Instead of this extremely uneven production, I'd recommend Ms. Akerman's "Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" as a far better example of her work. It's a kind of horror film set in the unlikeliest of locales.
I should Have known better.
Dcamplisson20 January 2020
I got sucked into this by Ben Mankewitz and his guest on TCM. I should've known better because Ben believes the most productive period Hollywood was the 60s and 70s, which is everybody knows this when I produced a lot of boring snd pretentious trash. His guest was on before, last year, and recommended an awful Vietnam era movie that was bizarre incoherent confusing and pointless.
However for some reason I thought tonight would be different so I started watching " the meetings of Anna" This film really reinforces a lot of clichés about the French even though thr inaction (cannot see any action) takes place in Germany. The central figure is dull and dirty in every sense of the word. Because it's a French film there's no spoiler in saying there are Filthy people with poor hygiene and no clothes on. I don't think I've ever seen a French film people with people who kept on their clothes. And at least one frumpy lady who avoids showers and seems to wear no undies. LOL
But apart from that I couldn't really tell you anything about it because there's no action or story.. There's really nothing to say. The characters are given to long speeches and stories with little or no point. Coincidentally the Germans in the movie speak very good French.
If you have a broken lightbulb at home you might wanna munch on it while I watch this film so at least there's something mildly interesting going on in your life.
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