Film

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Chantal Akerman's radical 202-minute portrait of a widow's methodical days in 1970s Brussels. Shot in long, unbroken takes, it finds profound drama in routine: housework, cooking, receiving visitors. Austere and hypnotic, it demands patience but rewards it with something closer to lived time than conventional narrative. For those curious about cinema's deeper possibilities.

TMDb rating3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to slow, exacting films where the accumulation of small domestic routines builds into something unsettling, and you trust a director to let a single shot run until it hurts.

Skip it if you want momentum, dialogue-driven plot or emotional release; at over three hours of largely unhurried routine, it can feel like an endurance test rather than a story.

What it asks of you: Over three and a half hours of fixed camera and long, unbroken takes, with little music and few cuts; it asks for patience and for sitting with silence and repetition.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Sans Soleil1983

Chris Marker's essayistic meditation on memory, time, and observation. Like Akerman, it trusts you to sit with images and find meaning in what accumulates rather than what happens. Profoundly moving without ever announcing emotion.

But Deeply fragmented and abstract. There's no plot to follow, only a voice and seemingly disparate footage that demands active interpretation from you.

Sans Soleil poster

Stalker1979

Andrei Tarkovsky's masterpiece about desire and the unknown, filmed in long meditative takes that let atmosphere and philosophical weight build slowly. Like Akerman, it rejects hurrying and finds transcendence in duration.

But 163 minutes of deliberate pacing. If you need plot momentum or a clear payoff, this will feel glacial and pretentious.

Stalker poster

The Turin Horse2011

Béla Tarr's final film, a hypnotic chronicle of a man and woman's repetitive days facing an indifferent world. Shares Akerman's commitment to ritual, routine, and the strange dignity found in endurance.

But Bleak, monochromatic, almost devoid of dialogue. The repetition is deliberate and unrelenting—comfort will not find you here.

The Turin Horse poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Gleaners and I2000

Both are radical examinations of what capitalist systems render invisible. Vardès films the actual poor; Akerman films invisible domestic labor. Both suggest that patient looking is a form of respect.

Vardès again, but this time exploring work, waste, and economic dignity across contemporary Europe. She films people and practices of gleaning with the same generous, unrushed attention Akerman brings to Jeanne. It's a poem about survival and systems.

But Essayistic and baggy; it meanders between ideas and people rather than following a through-line. Some viewers find it precious.

The Gleaners and I poster
More like this (5)

Meshes of the Afternoon1943

Maya Deren's groundbreaking avant-garde short about a woman, a house, and circular time. Experimental yet viscerally moving, it pioneered the poetic cinema that Akerman developed further.

But Only 14 minutes, but abstract and dreamlike enough to feel inaccessible if you're used to narrative clarity.

Meshes of the Afternoon poster

A Woman's Life2016

Jean-Paul Civeyrac's quiet chronicle of a woman aging through decades of domestic life. Unusually for narrative cinema, it actually honors the texture of ordinary time and the weight of accumulated days.

But Minimalist and uneventful by design. If you want a story with stakes and turning points, look elsewhere.

A Woman's Life poster

Vagabond1985

Agnès Vardès portrait of a drifter through rural France. Documentary observance meets fiction; an implicit ethic about witnessing and presence that echoes Akerman's humanistic attention.

But Slow-moving and digressive. The protagonist isn't particularly sympathetic, and the ending is deliberately unsentimental.

Vagabond poster

Daughters of the Dust1991

Julie Dash's lyrical exploration of a Gullah family, combining narrative with poetic, almost tableaux-like sequences. Shares Akerman's faith in visual and temporal complexity to express interior life.

But Fragmented structure and deliberately dreamlike pacing may feel obscure rather than engaging on first viewing.

Daughters of the Dust poster

Taxi Driver1976

Both films extract psychological and social depth from repetitive urban routine and solitude. Both trust extreme visual patience and minimal plot. But where Akerman is austere and composed, Scorsese is feverish—the same durational method, inverted in register and aimed at a man's interior decay rather than a woman's resistance.

Martin Scorsese's 114-minute portrait of a man's solitary urban routine: driving, sleeping, eating, thinking. Released the same year as *Jeanne Dielman*, it proves durational cinema wasn't exclusively the domain of the avant-garde. Watch how long takes of taxi cabs become psychological portraiture.

But Travis Bickle is repellent. The film's violence and his misogyny are meant to unsettle; if you want a sympathetic protagonist, this isn't it.

Taxi Driver poster

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