Remove ads

Information

A.k.a.
The Meetings of Anna
Year
1978
Runtime
128 min.
Director
Chantal Akerman
Genre
Drama
Rating *
7.4
Votes *
684
Checks
492
Favs
45
Dislikes
9
Favs/checks
9.1% (1:11)
Favs/dislikes
5:1
* View IMDb information

Top comments

  1. Dimitris Psachos Springer's avatar

    Dimitris Psachos Springer

    Unbelievably boring comment to describe the futility of a female artist's wants and emotions. 9 years 7 months ago
  2. Siskoid's avatar

    Siskoid

    Chantal Akerman, like Andrei Tarkovsky, loves stillness and silence, the better to lull you into a meditative state where thoughts and impressions come during the movie as opposed to later. Les Rendez-vous d'Anna is no different, and boy, does this plainly autobiographical piece ever bid thoughts and impressions to the surface! We follow a film maker played by Aurora Clément whose life story is very much like Akerman's. She's from Brussels, she travels the world to show her films, she writes home but doesn't disclose everything (her apathy towards the men she encounters foreshadows a kind of coming out that may have been Akerman's), and she's more observer than participant in her own life. Anna says yes to a lot of things, but we don't necessarily apprehend her actual level of interest. It is, at best, fleeting, like her presence in any given city. The film captures what it's like to travel alone (I wonder if we still do, because of the internet, though hotel rooms are to me still soul-draining environments), its tedium, the seeming irrelevance of one's meetings with strangers, the long silences where we're just in our heads, looking passively forward. Formally, when there's movement in the frame, it's either the talking characters walking and the camera being forced to track them, or else background elements that refer to travel - train, cars, hotel staff going about their business - otherwise, Akerman fills the screen with geometry, architecture, and symmetry. Places fixed in space. And so Rendez-vous becomes a series of intersections on a map. Anna intersects with others' lives, but never stops, while the final scene evokes certain forks in the road, but gives no clue as to which might lead home. 4 years 8 months ago
  3. kaculler's avatar
See all comments

Friends

Login to see which of your friends have seen this movie!

Activity

  1. JRipper138 added this movie to their watchlist 6 days 17 hours ago
See more activity

In 6 official lists

  1. This movie ranks #73 in The Criterion Collection's Eclipse Series
    The Criterion Collection's Eclipse Series's icon

    The Criterion Collection…

    73
  2. This movie ranks #97 in BBC's The 100 Greatest Films Directed by Women
    BBC's The 100 Greatest Films Directed by Women's icon

    BBC's The 100 Greatest F…

    97
  3. This movie ranks #244 in Doubling the Canon
    Doubling the Canon's icon

    Doubling the Canon

    244
  4. This movie ranks #712 in Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Cinema
    Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Cinema's icon

    Jonathan Rosenbaum's Ess…

    712
  5. This movie ranks #1114 in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films: 1001-2500
    TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films: 1001-2500's icon

    TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest F…

    1114
  6. This movie ranks #1479 in The Criterion Collection
    The Criterion Collection's icon

    The Criterion Collection

    1479
View all lists this movie is in