Golden Eighties
Who wouldn't want to shoot a colorful musical in the style of Hollywood’s golden age? Akerman, too, succumbed to this dream, though it didn't go singingly from the start. To raise the funds, she had previously shot a documentary of the rehearsals (The 80s), but the budget still proved to be a challenge. The director turned limitations into a manifesto: almost the entire film takes place in a shopping mall, a capacious metaphor for a city in late capitalism. The love intrigue oscillates between a comedy of errors and a true melodrama and spans two generations. A married boutique owner, after many years, encounters her unrequited love from the war years (there are dialogues in Polish!). Will everything start all over again? Her son can't make up his mind between his female hairdresser peer or her boss, a real femme fatale en rouge with whom her married sponsor is also in love - how can he win her over? It's all sung in a series of rock songs and commented on by a multi-voiced chorus of girls and boys, with a feast of colorful 80s costumes in the background.
Chantal Akerman
(1950 - 2015) Daughter of Jewish emigrants from Poland, was one of the most distinguished European avant-garde artists. She was influenced by the cinema of Jean-Luc Godard and relations with New York underground directors. There, impressed by the works of Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas and particularly Michael Snow, she made her first feature Hôtel Monterey (1973). Later on, in Europe, she directed feminist films, which experiment with narrative and are shot in slow rhythm with long takes.
Selected filmography
1972 Hôtel Monterey
1974 Ja, ty, on, ona / Je, tu, il, elle / I, You, He, She,
1978 Spotkania Anny / Les Rendez-vous d’Anna / Meetings with Anna
1983 Un jour Pina a demandé / One Day Pina Asked Me
1989 Histoires d’Amérique / American Stories, Food, Family and Philosophy
1991 Nuit et jour / Night and Day
1996 Kanapa w Nowym Jorku / Un divan a New York / A Couch in New York
2000 Uwięziona / La captive / The Captive
2004 Jutro przeprowadzka / Demain on déménage / Tomorrow We Move
2011 Szaleństwo Almayera / La folie Almayer / Almayer’s Folly