Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

The first time I saw Jeanne Dielman at the RU Film Co-Op years back, I hadn't had much preparation for it-- I just went and sat. And sat. And sat.

I remember not being bored, exactly, but wondering exactly where the film was going (for three hours...).

There's so little action, you see, and so little dialogue-- or so it seems at first (three hour) glance, maybe-- that I was shocked at the climaxing action and perplexed by the last few minutes of the movie.

Some years later, I was browsing VHS selections at the Princeton Record Exchange with an ex of mine. He held it up-- "What's this? Is it good?" And rather than just say "YES. I mean I think so. I'd like to see it again," I just said, "You'd hate it. No Russian gangsters, no car chases." And that was that until this past week, when I caught her again at Film Forum.

I'm not sure if it's because I'd already seen the film before or because I was viewing it as an older person this time, but this viewing I felt as if I was eating up every second, every decisive or indecisive gesture played out by Seyrig across the screen. Where her hands apply force or pause lightly, where her eyebrows lift or drop, whether her shoulders straighten or sag, the tension of her back, the briskness of her walk or the hesitation of her step.

It's true, there is very little dialogue-- but my god! Every moment, so much is being said.

Yes, okay, my eyes know more about cameras and angles and lighting and all that, and yes, I register the odd planarity of it all, and yes, I think I understand what kind of feminist I am by now, but that's not really what jumped at me most this time around. No,

Watching it now as a 32-year-old woman with her own wounds, I related quite differently to this woman, this film than I did as a barely-20-year-old college kid years ago. This time, when someone guffawed down the slope of the theatre when she burned the potatoes, it somehow hurt me. This time, when people (including myself) laughed at her foiled attempts to soothe the baby, a cold stone sank in my chest at the same time. This time, when her pale hands slapped at the shoulders of the man on top of her, I felt that they were more than little flutters-- I felt them as futile but exceedingly desperate kicks, the gasps of someone already drowning.

I wanted to put them in her hands. I wanted to straighten her shirt for her and put them in her fluttering hands.

And those confusing last few minutes of the film-- those sagging shoulders, the long breaths, those hands, the pausing lift of her eyebrows. I wanted to touch those seconds, those shoulders, those hands, all of them. Believe it or not, it's all even more downhill from here, poor thing. Lady, you are fucked.

To all my young friends in the theatre who spent so many of those many minutes checking facebook on your blackberries and texting "omg this is looooong" back and forth and laughing out loud when my heart was collapsing within my own chest on behalf of this woman, hey: please visit it again sometime. this is an amazing piece of storytelling.

You, too. You just missed it at FF, but try to catch it the next time it catches your eye (and you have 3+ hours to spare it).

It is a sad thing, but also a very good thing.