1.31.2010

Lio, Chantal Akerman, Les années 80 (1983) aka The Eighties - 'Surprising way it's filmed has its pleasures"

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"The surprising way it's filmed has its pleasures."

Les Années 80, 1983
[The Eighties]

Akerman The decontextualized sound of a feminine voice repeatedly delivers the ambiguous, singular declaration, "At your age, grief soon wears off"actressdirector (Chantal Akerman). The opening sequence provides an insightful glimpse, not only into Akerman's deliberative and exacting methodology, but more broadly, into the filmmaker's familiar expositions on such amorphous themes as identity, repetitive ritual, and identification of the speaker. Segueing into another seemingly illogical - and equally contextually indeterminate - isolated shot of women's legs promenading, dancing, scurrying, and even occasionally strutting on a cobblestone road (in a fractured, musical interlude that playfully recalls the introductory sequence of Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), the film's fragmented structure soon begins to reveal an intrinsic logic to its seemingly disconnected assembly of episodes as a disembodied pair of feet slips out of a pair of practical black boots and into a more visually striking pair of red medium-heeled shoes before walking out of frame. The wardrobe-changing sequence is then followed by the screen test of a young actress who, having received a set of stage directions given by the filmmaker, delivers an impassioned (and perhaps over-emotive) performance of selected excerpts from the script, depicting the heroine, Mado's crushing revelation of her unreciprocated love for her employer's son, Robert. However, a subsequent actress (Lio) provides a more distilled and enigmatic interpretation to a similar set of directions - an emotional opacity that is highlighted by a freeze frame close-up from her screen test - as Akerman provides constructive criticism on her captivating, but intentionally muted performance. Like the aesthetic change in footwear in the earlier sequence, the filmmaker has replaced actresses for the role of Mado, a decision that is seemingly (and idiosyncratically) punctuated by the sight of the actress' awkward, improvisational dance to the tune of an ensemble musical sequence from the film project. against the dissociative sight of an extended duration black screen, as the unseen subtly modulates her articulated tone from somber resignation to pragmatic trivialization, to optimistic encouragement, and finally, to compassionate reassurance at the guiding instruction of an off-screen
Composed of interrelated vignettes of script reading, casting, dress rehearsal, and vocal recording, and culminating in completed excerpts from the film's completed musical sequences, The Eighties captures the rigor, discipline, and meticulous attention to detail inherent in the creative process. Using repeated, identical directions to assorted actors and actresses and presented as culled, day-in-the-life vignettes from the rehearsal process, Akerman revisits the distilled fragmentation and intrinsic choreography of Toute une nuit in order to create an intriguing narrative puzzle that, in the absence of knowing the unfilmed musical's underlying plot, nevertheless conveys its emotional essence. Moreover, the extracted, dialogue-less acting exercise provides, not only an insightful examination into the interchangeability of role and identity in human relationships, but also as illustration of emotional (or more broadly, spiritual) transience and dislocation - the absence of the "true" speaker - a pervasive theme in Akerman's oeuvre that is often visually manifested in her non-fiction films through extended takes of desolate environments and featureless landscapes (News from Home, Hotel Monterey, D'Est, and From the Other Side), and in her feature films through disembodied framing (most notably in the static, decapitated shots of the heroine in Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles). It is this amalgam of repetition, fragmentation, and displacement that inevitably defines the film's idiosyncratically curious, yet infectious, alchemy: a choreography borne of role-playing, existential ambiguity, and quotidian ritual.



La madre muerta (1993) .... Maite
... aka The Dead Mother
Sans un cri (1992) .... Anne
Après l'amour (1992) .... Marianne
... aka After Love
... aka Love After Love
Rock-A-Doodle (1991) (voice) .... Goldie (French version)
Jalousie (1991) .... Camille
... aka Jealousy
Sale comme un ange (1991) .... Barbara
... aka Dirty Like an Angel


Chambre à part (1989) .... Marie
... aka Separate Bedrooms
Itinéraire d'un enfant gâté (1988) .... Yvette, 1ère femme de Sam
... aka Der Löwe (West Germany)
Golden Eighties (1986) .... Mado
... aka Window Shopping (USA: poster title)
Elsa, Elsa (1985) .... Elsa, number one
... aka The Eighties (USA: poster title)


"The surprising way it's filmed has its pleasures."



Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Belgian experimental filmmaker Chantal Akerman ("Je Tu Il Elle"/"Nuit et Jour"/"News from Home") comes up with a goofy backstage musical revolving around rehearsal footage, that aims to be a deconstruction of the musical. It opens with disembodied voices on a black screen, which leads to ladies' feet in heels clicking across the floor. The first hour, shot on video, amounts to a montage of auditions for parts in a musical comedy. It's untidy but very playful, and the surprising way it's filmed has its pleasures. The unseen Akerman directs from behind the scenes, as she uses the actors like props to get them to deliver their songs the way she wants The choreography is rehearsed, repeated, and altered under Akerman's offscreen guiding hand.
The second part, lasting twenty minutes and shot in 35mm, offers a musical extravaganza that comes out of the rehearsals. It's set in a shopping mall that becomes a ballroom for Magali Noël to swirl around in. It gives us an interesting preview of Akerman's upcoming musical comedy "Window Shopping." The pay-off is rewarding, but I found it trying to endure the less than wonderful grind of the first part. 
REVIEWED ON 5/24/2007        GRADE: B-

Les Années 80 (Belgium-France, 1983):

The Eighties: a make-or-break time for artists, especially severe ones like Chantal Akerman, who decided she had it with idiosyncratic films nobody saw. A shift into the mainstream, then? The structure, rehearsal footage culminating in resplendent finished work, might shape a method-to-her-madness memo to studio heads handing out the funds, except this is Akerman, experimental down to her fingertips, the airy making of a musical just the natural extension of the august exploration of Jeanne Dielman. A directorial sketch book, glimpses of screenplay readings, dress rehearsals and choreography, young performer following young performer under the filmmaker's scrutiny. The lenses are on the poised women and men being interviewed and molded, though the star of the film is Akerman herself, the auteur-conductor-puppeteer-ventriloquist just out of camera range, extracting an emotion or modulating a line ("More subdued... Your mind is a blank, as motionless as you can be") -- at one key point, she jumps in front of the camera to record one of the songs, her vocal clunkiness at the mike a no less naked moment than her bodily unveiling in Je Tu Il Elle. The trajectory is the progression of art, by which the fragmented (disembodied voices on a black screen, feet in heels clicking across the floor) becomes the whole, the grain of video segueing into Minnelli luster. The elating last twenty minutes display the results, warbling in long takes at the ice-cream shop, teeny hair-salon giddiness, the shopping mall as rueful ballroom, Magali Noël at the swirling center. The MGM-dreaminess, already mined for deconstruction by Godard and movie-movie romanticism by Demy, is here a comment on society's ritualized role-playing, a continuation of the yearning musicality of Toute une Nuit, and, acknowledged over a double 360° circular pan atop a building at dusk, only the beginning: "Until next year...," to producers, audiences, fellow artists.

Cast

Additional Details

Also Known As:The Eighties (USA) (poster title)
more Parents Guide: Add content advisory for parents Runtime: 82 min Country: Belgium | France Language: French Color: Color (Fujicolor) Sound Mix: Mono Company: Abilène Productions more

Fun Stuff

Trivia: First film of Bernard Yerlès. more Movie Connections: Referenced in Golden Eightiesmore (1986)

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question. User Reviews   (Review this title) 0 out of 7 people found the following review useful. boooooooring, 25 March 2008

Author: Brian Leonard (unclebrian@brianleonard.net) from Springfield, VA This is probably the most excruciatingly boring film I've ever seen. I saw the American premiere at the New York Film Festival, and its 82 minutes seemed like an eternity in the dentist's chair--the one played by Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. I was one of the many people who booed loudly at the end. One of my companions didn't boo--he was still asleep, lucky guy. The plot? All I remember is that it seems to be an audition for a musical, with an endless parade of women performing the same lines/songs/dances over and over and over. The greatly flawed film version of A Chorus Line is a masterpiece compared to this snooze-fest. You'd have to pay me to see another Chantal Akerman movie.
Referenced in
 -  Audition, preparation, rehearsal and research of this film. Another Masterpiece by Chantal Akerman, 18 November 2009

Author: kubrick2899 from Concord, North Carolina

THE EIGHTIES marks the turning point in Chantal Akerman's career. It stands as the end of her more experimental films of previous years and as the beginning of her more mainstream efforts of later years. The bulk of the film consists of auditions and rehearsals for a musical. In the final act, we get to see some segments of that musical. It's a wholly original and brilliant motion picture experience. Like most of Akerman's films, though, it's not for everyone. Her films are experiences for those who aren't into mainstream cinema. The songs in the film are catchy and unforgettable, and it's a special treat to see Akerman herself pop in a few times and give the performers some direction. The only downside of this film is that it's only available on an old VHS. The Criterion Collection has gotten a hold on her earlier films; maybe some day they'll get a hold of this one, as well. Another interesting aspect to this film is that it serves as a prelude to her next feature film, GOLDEN EIGHTIES or WINDOW SHOPPING.
Was the above review useful to you? 0 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
boooooooring, 25 March 2008


This is probably the most excruciatingly boring film I've ever seen. I saw the American premiere at the New York Film Festival, and its 82 minutes seemed like an eternity in the dentist's chair--the one played by Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. I was one of the many people who booed loudly at the end. One of my companions didn't boo--he was still asleep, lucky guy. The plot? All I remember is that it seems to be an audition for a musical, with an endless parade of women performing the same lines/songs/dances over and over and over. The greatly flawed film version of A Chorus Line is a masterpiece compared to this snooze-fest. You'd have to pay me to see another Chantal Akerman movie.
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