Chantal Akerman’s death by suicide in October of last year hangs heavily over her award-winning 2006 film Là-bas (English translation: Down There). Filmed in Israel while she was on a teaching assignment, the film is an elliptical documentary whose subject matter is slowly filled in for the viewer. It’s the form that first dominates: Akerman set up her camera so that it looks out her large Tel Aviv apartment windows at the rooftops and balconies of buildings across the street, capturing slivers of the lives of her neighbors. She also takes the camera to the beach a few times, where it captures the landscape and people who cross it, but all from a great remove.
For stretches of time lasting up to several minutes, the viewer watches the movement of distant figures as daylight shifts hues of light, as the line of vision switches angles from one scene to the next, and – in the case of the moments shot from the apartment – images are seen through matchstick blinds, giving them a layered texture. Despite the spartan set-up, the result is a film that’s not only one of her most accessible, but is easily one of the best in her groundbreaking oeuvre of formally innovative films – among them, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; I, You, He, She; Night and Day; No Home Movie, and On Tour With Pina Bausch.
Still from Là-bas; courtesy Icarus Films.
For the first ten minutes or so of Là-bas, almost all we hear from within the apartment are sounds from the outside world, which hit the viewer’s ear as though wrapped in cotton: an insistent rock beat from music playing in someone else’s apartment; traffic from below; the sound of multiple conversations wafting up from the street below, with a child’s laughter or the occasional yell rising above it all; the far off sound of fighter planes. In the apartment itself, we hear very little: the sound of Ms. Akerman’s shoes as she crosses the floor. Then the phone rings, and there’s her familiar husky voice. The first thing she says is, “No, really. I’m fine. I’m fine. No, I’m getting over it. I’m fine.” She’s likely talking about something as innocuous as a cold but given the manner of her death, the words take on an unexpected weight. That’s underscored as her ensuing conversation over the course of the film pivots from discussing the suicides of loved ones to anxiety over going out to shop, from observations about everyday Israel to pieces of personal family lore. All of this narration s unfolds against the carefully relayed images.
Still from Là-bas; courtesy Icarus Films.
You’re pulled into an experiment with form that powerfully underscores complex human lives and the complexities of living. The cumulative effect is moving without being overtly manipulative.
Là-bas screens Sunday, March 20th at 7:30 Pm at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Cinematographer Robert Fenz, who shot the film with Ms. Akerman, will be present for a post-screening discussion. More info here.
Below is wonderful interview with Ms. Akerman from 2011 in which she discusses her creative process, how she funded some of her early work (through an LA pimp), her disdain for celebrity culture, and gives a withering take on Juliette Binoche.
