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A truly voyeuristic film by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman which, among others, brings to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Rear Window. Akerman does not film here with any preconceived intentions. She seeks to be as open and blank as possible, to ensure that things take their own course. A remarkable self-portrait essay, open to many interpretations, embracing some of the most important elements of Akerman’s work and using the interplay of place and displacement to wrest beauty from despair. Akerman spends a brief period in an apartment by the sea in Tel Aviv, Israel. From her apartment, she spies on the neighboring apartments and films people living their ordinary daily lives. In voice-over, she reflects on her family, her Jewish identity and her childhood. She wonders whether normal everyday life is possible in this place, and whether filming is a realistic option. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)
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Multiple alienation, for which new examples of separation between the author and the world can be found with increasing runtime, captures without grasping, reflects without transforming it. It is pleasing that alienation works in the field of the work's statement and not between the author and the work itself: here, on the contrary, the absence of the subject in the visual field finds a perfect complement in the subjectivity of the sound track and the author's voice-over wanders the image like the soul of the eternal Jew throughout the world, with whom it will never merge anywhere or anytime. The merger is found only in death, which should not be postponed - on the contrary, it may sometimes need assistance. A personal structural diary, describing the past and predicting the future. Suicide, suicide, liberation.
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