Jeanne Dielman Review Revisted

It’s funny what kind of blog posts get a reaction. I’ve been writing essays for sixteen years now, and most don’t inspire any written comments at all despite my website getting upwards of thirty thousand hits a year. But there’s one post of mine that keeps getting responses: a blog from December of 2022, when I offered my opinion about the 1975 film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Bruxelles, as it had just been declared the greatest film of all-time by the British film magazine Sight and Sound. This declaration prompted me to watch it, and while I noted some of its attributes, I mostly scratched my head about the behavior of the protagonist of the film, questioning whether the fictionalized account of a single mother in Brussels was really representative of the broader experience of women everywhere, as the film is celebrated to be.

A few responses agreed with my take, liking the film even less than I did:

“Four hours of my life I will never get back. I wasn’t alone in finding it ludicrous – around 12 of the fortyish (in the) audience walked out, with over half leaving during the utterly callous crying babe scene.”

One commented that “The mother is appalling. She is like a shell, a zombie.”

But other disagreed: “This is cinema at its finest, leaving us with much to wonder and talk about.”

This is an important point, because any film that makes you think and leaves you with something to chew on is a worthy watch. That’s what good art does, so in that sense, I’m really glad I watched Jeanne Dielman.

A few responders were quite taken aback by my negative impression of the lead character and decided to go low:

“This is genuinely such a braindead review…You’re looking at a movie about a woman who has been stretched so thin she has no real time for herself, she doesn’t live for herself, she’s constantly working for no pay (yes, homemaking is labour), so of course she has no more energy for the emotional labour of taking care of a child.”

And then another wrote:

“A rather pointless review. You have clearly misunderstood Jeanne Dielman and instead of reading a lick of feminist theory or others’ interpretations of the film, you have decided to instead to declare that you were rather watch ‘Goodfellas’ and other male-directed movies. Very original.”

I found both of these comments ironic, because they made assumptions about me that could be categorized as “braindead” or “pointless.” There’s an inherent assumption behind the words, “Yes, homemaking is labour,” as it implies that I don’t view it as such. I do. I do with a degree of authority on the matter because I did it for twenty-three years, probably longer than the person making the point. Despite working hard at parenting, I found joy in the daily grind and in seeing my kids grow, something Jeanne Dielman was unable to do.

Then there was the assumption that I hadn’t read others’ interpretations of the film. Not true. Not only did I mention reading reviews in my original essay - something the reader clearly overlooked - those reviews are what prompted me to write my own review in the first place. I simply don’t agree that the film is a universal depiction of oppressed women, and I certainly don’t agree that I should have to read books on feminist theory to draw a conclusion about a film that should stand on its own merit.

My mother was a single mom for seven years, raising me and my siblings (note: not just one teenage son as in the film) and was in roughly the same position as Jeanne Dielman, but that’s where the similarities end. My mom worked hard, kept a steady job, laughed, dated, played tennis and cards with friends, cooked and arranged home repairs. It was difficult. It was exhausting. But she still lived her life to the fullest.

This is the lens through which I viewed the movie. Others undoubtedly view it through different lenses. That’s okay. People from different backgrounds and different experiences can view things differently, but it doesn’t mean that any of our opinions are “braindead” or “pointless.” It just means that they’re different.

I do wish more of my blogs inspired readers to comment – I find it illuminating, even when they get a bit personal. But kudos to a film that’s still being talked about fifty-plus years after it was released.

I just never want to see it again.