Movie Blog: Peeling Potatoes And More At WAC
Have you ever watched someone peel potatoes? Maybe.
But have you ever watched someone peel potatoes for four or five minutes in a movie? No? Well then you cannot pass up the opportunity to catch Jeanne Dielman at the Walker Art Center this month, which is part of a month-long series of feminist cinema: "And Yet She Moves." It's positively my favorite movie of all time when it comes to watching someone do housework without cutting away.
Don't believe me?
OK, I am being a little facetious, but part of the hold the 1975 Belgian avant garde masterpiece directed by Chantal Akerman continues to have over audiences (even now that it's available on DVD, whereas previous generations had to try to catch rare, one-off screenings) is that it exists at all. It's impossible to tell your friends and neighbors that there's a totally riveting, 200-minute movie out there that shows a world-class actress scrubbing out her tub, washing silverware, flipping light switches on and off, and setting the dining room table.
Jeanne Dielman, which bluntly depicts the daily chores and routines of a housewife who happens to have a side career as an ultra-discreet in-home prostitute, is one of the touchtone works of not only feminist cinema but also structuralist art. Though the activities it depicts would be, ahem, a chore in real life, the crisp, architecturally sound cinematography by Babette Mangolte renders every action and every stillness equally mind-blowing.
The same could be said for many of the other movies represented in "And Yet She Moves," which focus on what the Walker says is considered the "second wave" of the women's movement. Aside from Akerman, there's also Vera Chytilova's rambunctious (or, depending on your sensibilities, excruciating)Daisies; a filmic study of patriarchy and women from one of cinema's most famed feminist critics Laura Mulvey; a new documentary look at women in the art world of the '60s and '70s; and a Cuban-set love story that straddles the line between fiction and documentary.
The full list of films playing follows:
And Yet She Moves: Reviewing Feminist Cinema
Daisies (Directed by Vera Chytilova)
Friday, November 4, 2011 7:30 pm
Riddles of the Sphinx (Directed by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen)
Saturday, November 5, 2011 7:30 pm
Shulie (Directed by Elisabeth Subrin)
November 1 - 30, 2011
Chick Strand: In Retrospect
Thursday, November 10, 2011 7:30 pm
Variety (In Person: Bette Gordon)
Friday, November 11, 2011 7:30 pm
Empty Suitcases (In Person: Bette Gordon)
Saturday, November 12, 2011 2:00 pm
Surname Viet, Given Name Nam (Directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha)
Saturday, November 12, 2011 7:30 pm
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Directed by Chantal Akerman)
Sunday, November 13, 2011 2:00 pm
One Way or Another (De cierta manera) (Directed by Sara Gómez)
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 7:30 pm
!Women Art Revolution (Directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson)
November 18, 7:30 pm, November 19, 2:00 pm, November 19, 4:00 pm, November 19, 7:30 pm, November 20, 1:00 pm, November 20, 3:00 pm
Disarming Domesticity (Works by Martha Rosler and Andrea Callard)
August 30, 2011 - February 26, 2012
