Near the beginning of “I Don’t Belong Anywhere,” Marianne Lambert’s astute and poetic portrait of filmmaker Chantal Akerman, its subject speaks of being afraid. That’s a startling confession from an artist as daring and original as Akerman. But months earlier, with the death of her mother, her nomadic life underwent a seismic shift from which, it seems, she never recovered.
Natalia Akerman had fled Poland for Belgium only to be sent to Auschwitz, and her story, in one form or another, was at the core of her daughter’s work. Now that her mother was gone, Akerman wonders aloud to Lambert, “Will I still have something to say?”
Using pieces of furniture as tripods, Akerman fixes her lens on various corners of the apartment, and she and her affably puttering octogenarian maman move in and out of the frame. If death is a presence in the film — in those still-lifes anticipating Natalia’s absence; in her unarticulated memories of Auschwitz — so is the spark of life, bittersweet and mysterious. It’s in the profound affection between mother and daughter, unequivocal in the loving gazes they exchange across a kitchen table or via Skype.
“She’s spent her whole life making cheerful noises,” Akerman said of Natalia in a 2013 interview. “To hide what was destroyed.” In “No Home Movie,” Akerman gently edges those cheerful noises toward the dark center that Natalia has skirted for three-quarters of a century. They don’t quite get there, but their small talk gradually shifts to discussions about family, religion and war.
Natalia Ackerman and her daughter Sylviane in the documentary "No Home Movie," by Chantal Ackerman.
With its focus on domestic interiors (and interior lives), the movie doesn’t simply recall Akerman’s past efforts; it reveals their roots. The resonance is particularly significant in the case of “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels,” the tour de force she made when she was only 24. That landmark feature closely observed the monotonous household chores of a widow who moonlighted as a prostitute, in the process moving the disregarded details of women’s lives to the forefront. It’s one of 14 Akerman films sensitively excerpted in “I Don’t Belong Anywhere.”
Within the doc’s brief running time, Lambert sculpts a discerning overview of the artist and her filmography. Her film (which opens in Los Angeles the same day as “No Home Movie”) finds its own pulse and never feels rushed. It’s a compelling introduction for Akerman novitiates while offering fresh insights to devotees.
In one of their transatlantic video chats, Akerman tells Natalia that she needs to sign off soon. “You don’t have to explain,” her mother responds. “We say goodbye and that’s it.” But they don’t hang up; they hang on, enchanted, not wanting to let go.
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‘No Home Movie’
In French, English and Spanish with English subtitles
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes
Playing: Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica
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‘I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman’
In French and English with English subtitles.
No rating
Running time: 1 hour, 8 minutes
Playing: Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica
