Je Tu Il Elle

The film is in three parts. In the first a woman empties her room, lies on the floor, writes and tears up letters for days and eats powdered sugar out of a bag with a spoon. In the second she hitchhikes and rides with a lorry driver, and the man talks while the woman listens. In the third she goes to the flat of a former lover. Chantal Akerman made her first feature at twenty-three and played the woman herself. The camera barely moves, scenes are not cut until they end, and that choice defined all her later cinema. The long sex scene in the last part is counted among the early instances of filming a woman's body without turning it into a spectacle. It is black and white and almost entirely silent. Who it is for: anyone curious about experimental cinema and early Akerman. Who it is not for: viewers wanting narrative, since the film uses duration as material.