I, You, He, She (1974)

Even though it was a film I barely feel I could say anything intelligent about, Chantal Akerman's I, You, He, She turned out to be a quite haunting movie experience, even though the film's point partially eludes me (and many scenes seem unnecessary, especially in the beginning of the film where nudity is used in an extremely tiresome way). It starts with a girl (played by Akerman herself) in a room. The room is furnished with a mattress, a bureau and a chair. And a mirror. The girl has trapped herself in the room. As one scene ends and the next begins, a voice-over tells about the girl, but these are bare facts that we can see ourselves. The narration and the images are not as out of sync as they are in Marguerite Duras' India Song, but they are not altogether congruous either. It's an interesting technique that makes the whole thing full of tension. The girl shifts positions. She eats sugar. She writes a letter. She is trapped in the room. Then, suddenly - and within this film this is a dramatic turn of events - the girl leaves the apartment. We see a grim-looking junction (I've noticed a few Belgian directors' fondness for that type of ugliness - what's going on?). The girl is picked up by a truck-driver. They go to a bar, and they continue the journey. The truck-driver talks about his life. He is bored with his family, but at least he can meet a woman in his car whenever he feels like it. The girl gets out of the car. She knocks on a door, and is let into an apartment. We realize that the person who opens the door is her girlfriend. Although the girl is told she cannot stay, the two end up in bed. // The film is shot in gritty surroundings, using a sharp b/w palette. Sometimes the images are grainy. Like in Jeanne Dielman, actions typically play out in real time. It's harder to say anything about what the film tries to say. We see the girl doing almost everything compulsively (eating, writing, moving stuff around, drinking, having sex) and even when she is at rest, she looks restless. When she is in her department, she looks like a person who has decided to give up on the world. Time seems to have stopped, become irrelevant; days seem to go by, weeks even. Then she leaves (and it feels like a dramatic thing when she does), but inside that truck, or in the bar, she looks lost, and with the man, she does what she is told, and she is quiet, listening to the man's horrible story. She is not welcome at her girlfriend's place, but somehow, she is allowed to stay, and she does, eating sandwiches, being the one who is fed. How should this, along with the prolonged intimate scene, be interpreted?

According to Wikipedia, Akerman was upset when a gay film festival screened this film. Reportedly, she said that she would never allow any of her films to be shown on a gay film festival. Having seen I, You, He, She that declaration astounds me.