FilmFest 3: Chantal Akerman's Early Films

Movie: La Chambre
Year: 1972

and

Movie: Hotel Monterey
Year: 1972


Chantal Akerman was born on June 6, 1950 to an observant Jewish family in Brussels, Belgium. Before she was even born, her life had been touched by tragedy--her grandparents and her mother were sent to the concentration camp in Auschwitz and only her mother returned. This personal experience influenced her work directly. Another early influence on her career the French director Jean-Luc Goddard. After viewing his film "Pierrot le Fou" as a 15-year-old, Akerman said she was moved that very night to become a filmmaker.

In 1971, Akerman moved to New York City, where here career began to take flight. She was like a sponge, soaking up all the influence--cultural and otherwise--on offer in the Big Apple. Akerman was exposed to the work of several of the city's avant-garde filmmaking community and later called the experience "the most determining factor on my cinematography." Of course, the bills had to be paid to and Akerman held down a variety of odd jobs which undoubtedly affected her view as well (including, most interestingly as a sculpture model and as a cashier in a porn theater). A final piece of the puzzle was Akerman meeting Babette Mangolte, a cinematographer who became her collaborator during the early part of her career.

In 1972, the pair worked together on the two self-financed experimental works that comprise the first day of our Akerman FilmFest. The first is "La Chambre," an 11-minute short film. The setting is a cramped tenament apartment. A camera slowly pans around the room moving from right to left. We see images in the room--an old chair, a table with fruit on it, a sink with dirty dishes, a calendar. We also see Akerman too, lying on a bed looking rumpled and perhaps a little dazed. Akerman soon becomes the focus of the panning camera. Each time it returns to her she is doing something different. At one point, she is absentmindedly playing with an apple, next, she is eating it. Then we see Akerman twisting and writhing under the sheets. As her behavior changes, so too does that of the camera. About three-quarters of the way in, the pans change from left to right and become less sweeping, so that Akerman's actions become more prominent and focused. We are forced to concentrate on what she is doing and in doing so, we have allowed ourselves to become swayed by Akerman's vision and ability to construct tension simply through images and camerawork.

"Hotel Monterey" is the longer (slightly more than an hour) and more visceral of the two works. A silent film like "La Chambre," "Hotel" takes place in a tired, run down hotel on the upper West Side. The walls are industrial blue and flaking and the guests look haggard and beaten down to match. Lighting is dim and the elevators are claustrophobic. In short, it's not a pretty place but Akerman manages to convey images of dignity and yes, beauty. According to an essay by Michael Koresky on the Criterion web site, there was little planning before the shooting of this film:

Akerman knew only that she would start filming on the hotel’s main floor and end at the top, and that she wanted to emerge from dark into light, night into day. The shoot lasted one night, approximately fifteen straight hours, during which Akerman and Mangolte would put the camera down wherever it felt right and roll until Akerman’s gut told her to stop. Akerman later explained that “the shots are exactly as long as I had the feeling of them inside myself”; about the overall conception, she said, “I want people to lose themselves in the frame and at the same time to be truly confronting the space.” The result is minimalist yet rich: the viewer, wandering these mostly vacant hallways, elevators, and bedrooms, grows hyperaware of her or his own physical presence. A hotel is a place meant to be occupied, yet this one is largely drained of visible people, so it often seems like a way station on the road to some netherworld.

The final moments of the movie were for me, the most magical. Rising from the grimy darkness of the hotel into the soft morning light on the roof, Akerman's final shots of the city awakening from its sleep are mesmerizing. Akerman has created a vivid time capsule of a New York that doesn't exist anymore (for better or worse). It's a New York before gentrification and a Disney-fied time square. It's a New York of Puerto Rican kids wearing cutoff jean shorts playing stickball in the streets, a New York of hustlers in fur coats and platform shoes running their game, a New York of graffiti and grime. It is evocative and moving and the emotional impact of Akerman's final shots really came out of nowhere to grab me and move. I was interested in the goings-on and impressed by the ideas and creativity on display. But the final shots--when we step out of the darkness of the hotel and into the light of day--are what allow me to recommend this film wholeheartedly. Yes, both of these works are experimental in every sense of the word, but watch with an open mind, concentrate and I think you will be touched on some level.

Want to discuss "La Chambre" or "Hotel Monterey?" Leave a comment.