Anna epitomizes enigmatic in this grim portrait of a depressed and withdrawn film director.
Played by Aurore Clement, Anna is so dour and laconic that one marvels she is capable of creating art, but perhaps it is her ability to focus and listen that enables her to perform such duties. She does practically nothing but listen in this talky production.
I thought this movie was going to be significantly better when I observed Anna's interactions, early on, with the needy, heart-on-his-sleeve Helmut (Heinrich Schneider), whose wife had left him for a Turk. We see here the extent of Anna's detachment -- she can't even admit to liking flowers. In the pair's awkward exchange, director Chantal Akerman nails the kind of situation in a which a guy is ready to commit to a woman while understanding absolutely nothing about her.
The film also excels in its depiction of Anna's meeting with Ida (Magali Noel), mother of a guy with whom Anna has broken two engagements sans explanation. "Why write each other if you don't love each other?" Ida sensibly asks. "Let others write." And how!
Subsequently, however, we are seriously let down during extended, mopey shots of Anna on a train, interacting with a guy who speaks monotonously of his travels and the ways of railroads (i.e., "They're uncoupling the cars.") Who gives a fig?
The movie proceeds to show Anna's strange interactions with her mother (Lea Massari), with whom she crawls into bed naked and discusses sex she has had with a woman. We also observe her hook-up with depressed Daniel (Jean-Pierre Cassel) -- "You march on, or you die" -- who anticipates having sex with Anna, only to become suddenly ill and rejecting of her overtures. At one point, Anna actually smiles as she sings this drip a song, however, the point of it all is totally unclear.
I read on Wikipedia that Ms. Akerman was the child of Holocaust survivors who killed herself at age 65. One wonders how much of "Anna" might have been autobiographical.
Instead of this extremely uneven production, I'd recommend Ms. Akerman's "Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" as a far better example of her work. It's a kind of horror film set in the unlikeliest of locales.
Played by Aurore Clement, Anna is so dour and laconic that one marvels she is capable of creating art, but perhaps it is her ability to focus and listen that enables her to perform such duties. She does practically nothing but listen in this talky production.
I thought this movie was going to be significantly better when I observed Anna's interactions, early on, with the needy, heart-on-his-sleeve Helmut (Heinrich Schneider), whose wife had left him for a Turk. We see here the extent of Anna's detachment -- she can't even admit to liking flowers. In the pair's awkward exchange, director Chantal Akerman nails the kind of situation in a which a guy is ready to commit to a woman while understanding absolutely nothing about her.
The film also excels in its depiction of Anna's meeting with Ida (Magali Noel), mother of a guy with whom Anna has broken two engagements sans explanation. "Why write each other if you don't love each other?" Ida sensibly asks. "Let others write." And how!
Subsequently, however, we are seriously let down during extended, mopey shots of Anna on a train, interacting with a guy who speaks monotonously of his travels and the ways of railroads (i.e., "They're uncoupling the cars.") Who gives a fig?
The movie proceeds to show Anna's strange interactions with her mother (Lea Massari), with whom she crawls into bed naked and discusses sex she has had with a woman. We also observe her hook-up with depressed Daniel (Jean-Pierre Cassel) -- "You march on, or you die" -- who anticipates having sex with Anna, only to become suddenly ill and rejecting of her overtures. At one point, Anna actually smiles as she sings this drip a song, however, the point of it all is totally unclear.
I read on Wikipedia that Ms. Akerman was the child of Holocaust survivors who killed herself at age 65. One wonders how much of "Anna" might have been autobiographical.
Instead of this extremely uneven production, I'd recommend Ms. Akerman's "Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" as a far better example of her work. It's a kind of horror film set in the unlikeliest of locales.