Jeanne Dielman: Neurotic Seclusion

This chapter shows that in some Chantal Akerman’s films, houses and flats are restless epicentres, where the quotidian is perceived as a burden and where the soul’s wounds are expressed. To dwell does not mean to celebrate of the forces of domestic space, but quite the opposite: it means to be constantly shaken by psychological states, by the body’s agitation. In Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), Jeanne is besieged by the anticipation and the over-organisation of the mundane. Chores (cooking, cleaning, washing) follow one another, their succession determined by Jeanne’s neuroses and her need to feel protected from a life filled with inhibitions and prohibitions. This chapter also shows that it is precisely the body’s agitation, the confusion of the mind (the disturbances, the dysfunctions) that fix the subject in space, that immobilize them, and that sometimes make them want to desert, to leave, to go into temporary exile.