‘A WEEK WITH CHANTAL AKERMAN’ SET

Belgian-born, Paris-based Chantal Akerman has long been highly regarded in Europe yet remains all but unknown in the United States. Her 3 1/2-hour-long “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce--1800 Bruxelles” proved a shocker at the 1977 Filmex, an austere and demanding commentary on what “woman’s work” can encompass. But it has been shown only rarely since. In 1979 she was represented at Filmex with another remarkable film, “The Meetings of Anna,” an acutely observed and thoughtful work in which a young film maker contemplates her needs and loneliness as she travels from Paris to Germany and Belgium for the openings of her latest film.

Virtually everything of importance in the film maker’s career--except “The Meetings of Anna”-- will be on view at the Fox International’s “A Week With Chantal Akerman,” which begins Friday. The series provides an unusual opportunity to see how a major film maker has evolved.

Born in Brussels in 1950, Akerman decided to become a film maker after seeing Godard’s “Pierrot Le Fou.” By 18, she had made her first film. Spending several years in Manhattan in the ‘70s, she made a series of experimental films in the manner of Michael Snow, which accounts for the superb sense of structure and composition that characterize all her work. Clearly, Akerman learned early about the camera’s power to observe, and her work continues to command us to look as well as to listen.

Not until her most recent work, “Window Shopping,” a musical, has any of her films had a score, with Akerman preferring to make use of a rich array of natural sounds. (Not included in this series, “Window Shopping” will open this fall as a David Byrne-Jonathan Demme presentation for World Artists.)

“A Week With Chantal Akerman opens with “Toute une Nuit” (“Through the Night”) (1982) and “Je . . . Tu . . . Il . . . Elle” (“I . . . You . . . He . . . She,” 1974). The isolation and longing of the individual is Akerman’s major preoccupation, as evident in this recent work as it is in her first feature. “Toute Une Nuite” follows some 70--yes, 70--people, driven to often comic desperation in their pursuit of love and sex during a hot summer Brussels night. “Je . . . Tu . . . Il . . . Elle” falls into three parts; the first finds a young woman (played by Akerman) holing herself up in a barren apartment, writing endlessly and snacking on powdered sugar; the second features an encounter with a horny truck driver (Niels Arestrup); in the third she makes passionate love with another woman (Claire Wauthion).

Starting at 4 p.m. Saturday there will be a program of early shorts, “Hotel Monterey” (1972), a structuralist work filmed in a Manhattan welfare hotel in which the endless operating of its elevators serves as a leitmotif , creating the sensation that we’re caught up in a giant machine; “La Chambre” (1972), a Michael Snowish study in light and texture in which a camera incessantly pans back and forth in Akerman’s small Manhattan apartment as she lies in bed, eating an apple; “Saute Ma Vie” (1968), Akerman’s first film, in which she plays a teen-ager so frustrated by domestic routines in her cramped apartment she blows it up; and “I’m Hungry, I’m Cold” (1985), a deliciously wise and witty vignette in which two pretty teen-age runaways from Brussels wind up in Paris pursuing food, shelter and men.

Another program starts at 6 p.m. with “News From Home” (1977), a beautiful structuralist work in which Akerman’s camera prowls the streets of New York while we hear her read (in English) her mother’s letters to her. They are full of love and affection, speaking of a small, well-ordered world that makes Manhattan seem all the lonelier. Next is “The Eighties” (1984), an inspired compilation of audition videos for Akerman’s musical, which concludes with some lush 35-millimeter, fully staged sequences for the long-planned film. “Window Shopping” is superficially a radical departure for Akerman, resembling nothing so much as a Jacques Demy musical and set in a Paris shopping mall filled with people, mainly women, yearning for romance. “The Eighties,” in turn, is filled with actresses (and some actors) yearning to be cast in “Window Shopping.” “Je . . . Tu . . . Il . . . Elle” screens again at 9:30.

“Jeanne Dielman” screens Sunday at 4 p.m. and will be followed at 7:30 by “Je . . . Tu . . . Il . . . Elle” and “Toute Une Nuit” at 9:15. The latter two films and “The Eighties” will be repeated through Thursday; for show times, call (213) 396-4215.