Je, Tu, Il, Elle

1974 Directed by Chantal Akerman

'Je' is a girl voluntarily locked in a room. 'Tu' is the script. 'Il' is a lorry driver. 'Elle' is the girlfriend.

A woman suffers a subdued psychological breakdown in the wake of a devastating breakup.

Chantal Akerman Niels Arestrup Claire Wauthion

Alternative Title

I, You, He, She

drama

86 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Sally Jane Black 3

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

It takes a moment to realize that, yes, she's eating sugar straight out of a brown paper bag. What at first seems like it's going to just be an interesting study of a human being and her emotional inner monologue turns into a strange journey through baser emotions. I can only assume the... raw eating habit is indicative of some sort of basic craving. She's ingesting pure energy, something sweet but not complex. It's not necessarily about need, but want.
Perhaps because of the focus on food throughout the film, especially the sugar and the neat way Julie's ex-girlfriend folds up the sandwich she creates, the climactic sex scene of this film reminded me of a more direct, slower Svankmajer.…
Review by Stephanie ★★★½ 2

chantal akerman did not give a fuck she really said here's a 15 minute sex scene with me in it. that was fighting for gay rights, people were killed.
I loved the beginning and end of this but I wish that man didn't have that much screentime. chantal knows what it is to be gay and depressed like no one else.
Review by nathaxnne ★★★★★

10000% has that wild early-twenties pent-up horny/annihilatory filthy leather jacket agoraphobe dirtbag energy where like seasonally-affected catatonic shutdown-bordering-on-end-of-life-stuff-at-least-u-finished-ur-manuscript-but-food-has-been-gone-for-days-and-you-have-to-get-out-right-now gives way to sudden-ill-advised-road-trip-by-oneself-or-with-sketchy-semi-strangers whereupon u show up kinda explosively without much warning but with a lot of fanfare in someone's apartment that someone who might be kinda mad or worried or worried and mad or tired of dealing with your b.s. which is a lot of b.s. all the time but is still mostly happy to see you and mostly glad u r still here wherever here is and there is a bunch of drama but not all of it bad my original review was just going to read 'Chantal Akerman: Like. A. Boss." i should have kept it that way…
Review by 🐱Andrew Chrzanowski🐱 ★★★★★ 2

☆"And so I left."☆
Long down the voting tally on the 5000th film poll, nonetheless on my DVR so I must watch it before my box melts from overcapacity, is Chantal Akerman's Je, Tu, Il, Elle ["I, You, He, She"]. Her debut narrative feature has long been on my watchlist, and there's no reason why I haven't seen it other than 2800 other movies are also on that list. Sometimes, things get lost in the shuffle.
Signaling her unique cinematic voice, Je, Tu, Il, Elle is audacious as is the rest of her filmography. Though a key difference in this film to several others is a sexual charge and sensual energy, with a(n) (in)famous real-time encounter that was daring for…
Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★★ 5

***One of the best 150 films I have ever seen.***
-Who am I? I'm a woman expecting for the inevitable, the irreversible to be erased, like a miracle that could only happen in an alternate reality, a reality that might bring me gloves when I'm in cold, or an embrace when solitude haunts me, or the concrete to seal up my heart wounds. Who are you?
-I am the one that reveals the truth, that understands your motives even better than yourself. I am the one that nudes what happens behind the curtain. I am the prophet of future consequences, and what lies beyond your destiny.
-Who is he?
-He's the typical incarnation of chauvinism, an existentialist entity of a…
Review by Diogo Serafim ★★★★ 4

the images soon catch up with the narrative, but the diegesis remains enigmatic. akerman works with an approach towards non-solidity, images may fade or resist, transitions may be abrupt, but the movie structures itself in some kind of watery resistance nonetheless: what we see resists that which we perceive and vice-versa.
there is some perverse causality within the dissembling black & white and the sudden shifts of light: the anguish is palpable, but we can't fully grasp it. the entire film constructs itself within some ilusory sense of compactness, of impenetrability, as if chantal wanted to hide her pain by showing only a glimpse of it.
"i realised that life stood still no matter what, that nothing would happen, and that i had to wait until it stopped snowing and the snow melted. it snowed a long time."
the last scene tranfigures love as rage, and when it's over, she leaves once more.
Review by rudi ✨ ★★★★½ 1

not sure there will ever be anything as powerful as Chantal Akerman sitting on the floor eating sugar straight out of the bag for like twenty minutes
Review by claira curtis ★★★★½ 4

You are young and you are beautiful and you’ve just been broken up with. Your apartment feels so much bigger without them in it. Your apartment feels too big without them in it. You move the furniture around, trying to make things take up more space than they should. Trying to produce the feeling of more bodies in the room. But it’s just you. It’s just you and the heartache. The heartache is blinded by grief and doesn’t know you’re together in this narrow space. If you move slow enough, it won’t notice you. If it doesn’t notice you, it can’t sink it’s teeth into you. So you move slow as molasses.
You spend days doing next to nothing. You feel…
Review by Sarah🖼️🔥 ★★★★★

I'm depressed AND can't have sex with my ex because of social distancing?! you mean I can't even aspire to live this movie?!
Review by joaopedrofaro ★★★★★

Explorar dimensões. Akerman assume esse estudo das formas e suas limitações, sendo os limites essenciais para enquadrar os corpos paralelos das paredes do quarto e do humano, sendo este último o principal. E sendo o feminino, claro, com sua sexualidade se tornando a maior manifestação de vida. Quando existe o sexo com o masculino (a cena da masturbação do caminhoneiro) nem dentro do quadro ele está, porque simplesmente não interessa, não há vida ali.
As dimensões solitárias da jovem sozinha no quarto fúnebre se transformando no último momento, quando as duas amantes se encontram. Nesse encontro, tanto o quarto quanto o humano mudam, tudo se torna vivo. Todas as dimensões estão em movimento.
Review by holli ★★ 1

have you ever watched the rooney mara pie scene from a ghost story and thought "wow, i could watch an hour and a half of that"? boy do i have a movie for you!
Review by marcos ★½ 3

???? 80% of this film is just miss thing eating 😭😭😭 this is what my biopic would look like

Recent reviews

Review by spook3veli ★★★★★

Je ne vais pas chercher à paraphraser les images avec des mots, c’est un film qui dit tout et encore plus de lui même, il suffit de le regarder pour comprendre, pour tout comprendre.
Akerman nous touche profondément avec un long-métrage si simple en apparence, qui croirait pouvoir se retrouver autant dans ce personnage ? dans ses émotions ? pourtant c’est le cas peu importe qui nous sommes.
Je tiens également à souligner le courage et l’audace de Chantal Akerman d’avoir réalisé ce film en 1974 ce qui devait être tout sauf facile.
Review by Hayden Welch ★★★★ 9

“And so I left. A tiny white room - the ground floor - as narrow as a corridor - where I lie, motionless - and alert - on my mattress. The first day I painted the furniture blue.”
Crazy how much maturity and patience is in these radical works for someone if such a young age. It’s a great demonstration of heartbreak as it’s this slow-building silence erupts in a very satisfying way. You can the effects of Jeanne Dielman dripping in this, but in a much more young and energetic way, rather than a more long-lasting frustration. Je, Tu, Il, Elle is the perfect example of moving through difficult trauma onto better things, while acknowledging and escaping a damaging cycle.
Review by 🐱Andrew Chrzanowski🐱 ★★★★★ 2

☆"And so I left."☆
Long down the voting tally on the 5000th film poll, nonetheless on my DVR so I must watch it before my box melts from overcapacity, is Chantal Akerman's Je, Tu, Il, Elle ["I, You, He, She"]. Her debut narrative feature has long been on my watchlist, and there's no reason why I haven't seen it other than 2800 other movies are also on that list. Sometimes, things get lost in the shuffle.
Signaling her unique cinematic voice, Je, Tu, Il, Elle is audacious as is the rest of her filmography. Though a key difference in this film to several others is a sexual charge and sensual energy, with a(n) (in)famous real-time encounter that was daring for…
Review by mia ★★★★½

it’s true dating women feels like breathing air and dating men feels like sitting in silence at arby’s while a tv is on at full volume
Review by mia ★★★★½ 2

she said butch brat rights
Review by Samjitsu ★★★

I don't recommend this if you have no prior experience with Akerman, but at the same time I don't know what is a good starting point for her work. BUT maybe this film would have some extra resonance in an age where no one gets to go outside.
Review by Vincent Di Lella ★★★★

A very interesting movie by Chantal Akerman in her directorial debut. I found this film to be a little bit slow at sometimes but that didn't stop me from enjoying the film. I actually really enjoyed watching her film. It's visually interesting with beautiful cinematography, the storytelling was really interesting and I liked it very much. I hope to watch more of her films in the future.
Review by paulo ★★★½

esse é o mundo que o esquerdistas querem!
Review by maahmoouuddz

طب مهو مبدأياً كده اكتر آثر يسيبه فيلم جواك وانت بتشوفه هو انك تبقى دايب معاه، بمعنى تبقى عامل زي الريشه مثلا كده وبتطير مع أجواء الفيلم.. بيطير بيك بقى شمال ويمين ويسوحك معاه.. وده اللي حصلي، الحاله جميله اووي.. الشعور جميل وغريب، انك تبقى بتتفرج وحاسس بنفسك.. فاهم اللي هو انت كأنك كنت ناسي نفسك وبدأت تحس.. تحس ب اللمسه، بجسمك، لما تلمس وشك.. لما تلمس إنسان تاني (مش قصدي حاجه)، اقصد السلامات.. شعور انك بتسلم على حد عزيز عليك.. شعور النظره، يعني انا فاكر مره وانا صغير.. في نظره كده كانت بيني وبين حد عمري ما نسيتها لدلوقتي.. اللي عايز اقوله يعني ان الفيلم ده كأنه بيعيشك وبيحسسك بنفسك، بيحرك نقطة الاحساس دي جواك.. ومعرفش ده ازاي، يعني…
Review by aaleeex ★★★½

Mujer sola, mujer y hombre, mujer y mujer.
Je et Tu.
Retrato introspectivo en su cierta medida de Julie (Chantal Akerman), encerrada en la habitación y en el plano. Desplazando muebles por aquí y por allá. Escribiendo una carta que no se termina. La voz en off lidera esta parte de el metraje. Comiendo por comer, viviendo por vivir.
Il.
“Ahora soy camionero“. Aquí el personaje de Chantal tiene la compañía de un camionero, conducen, comen y charlan. Interesante.
Elle.

Y para cerrar este curioso debut, Chantal Akerman nos brinda una extensa escena de sexo con ella, su amante. Dentro de su silencio, una voz grita y quiere hablar, lo hace sutilmente.
Review by Ryan ★★★½

once the pandemic is over i'm gonna recreate the last scene with each of my friends in their homes. stock up on bread, fellas
Review by Paraselean ★★★½

"I figured that, in any case, life had come to a halt..."
Applying changes to your surroundings, the living space you find yourself existing in - perhaps a different position of your furniture will help you rearrange yourself as well. Doing the bare minimum to keep your body sated by eating the most accessible food you can find, over and over again, to the point where the act of eating itself becomes a monotonous chore, sometimes you miss the food with your spoon. Dedicating every little ounce of strength you manage to muster up into putting down your thoughts and feelings on paper. Undressing yourself without getting up. Walking around the scattered pieces of your inner life around you, eventually…