Movement through confined space, revolving with the clock, showing slight progression, showing very little movement, being movement while showing almost none, dominating expectation with the camera and not the content, allowing slow, steady observation of every detail, detailing the objects repeatedly--stove, bed, chair, apple, body, etc. Change signifies a shift in focus, slowly penduluming back to the body, the woman, the person, in bed, returning to something more traditional, yet never quite traditional.

52 project: 46/52

Very simple—a camera moves around a room three times; nothing changes except the girl lying in bed. And then the camera starts turning back and focusing on the girl, swaying like a pendulum and then eventually deciding the carry on its moving way. Surprisingly dense for 12 minutes, or at least the type of structuralist short that suddenly had me asking a number of questions: what is space in a cinematic realm when we can’t see it? Why are we attracted to movement in cinema? What is the relationship between movement of captured objects and movement of the camera itself? Is the pleasure of movement a suggestion that spectatorship demands narrativization, even at the molecular level? And why is movement always placed most importantly on the human instead of other moving objects? Needless to say, a fascinating work that once again redeems the fact that I’m not hopeless when it comes to avant-garde cinema.

Someone should write a story that takes place during this movie about Chantal Akerman fighting off an assassin or some other threat while she's off screen, just barely in time to appear to be relaxing comfortably when the camera sweeps by her.

I love this movie so much

Structuralism is dope. Chantal Akerman made this when she was 21/22, I think this is the second or third film she ever made. It's not for everyone, but as someone who just took a course on avant-garde cinema, I thought this was pretty great.

Interesting quote from Akerman, "It was a revelation for me, that you could make a film without telling a story. And yet the tracking shots of <--------> (Back and Forth, 1969) in the classroom, with movements that are purely spatial while nothing is happening, produce a state of suspense as tense as anything in Hitchcock. I learned from them that a camera movement, just a movement of the camera, could trigger an emotional response as strong as from any narrative."

Looking around a room with Chantal Akerman in bed looking back at me, makes me wish it wasn't just a movie ;) ;) ;)

oh wow

Only Ackerman can mesmerize like this.
Her emphasis on space is unlike any other filmmaker, even taken to its bare essentials like here.

Akerman is an absolute treasure. Her use of lighting to composite seemingly impressionist images from household appliances, all the while flexing her eye for production design and long take photography signals the coming of one of cinema’s boldest visionaries. Literally the best.

Chantal is REALLY going to fuck me up twice in one day like that, huh?

Akerman is Eve taking a small bite out of the Big Apple. It tastes bland and bitter, but we do learn something. She and we move and stir though imprisoned in one spot by domesticity, women chained to bed. The perspective of a woman matters, even if boring, even if bored. This barely movie really gets the claustrophobia of NYC right. At least this is better than TINY FURNITURE.

A study in space and movement is not fully unexpected given what I know or Akerman’s background and influences, but with her talents it’s no surprise that she still manages to bring something new to the table. Rather than just the study in space and observation such films usually are, La Chambre breathes while observing back. It integrates motion of on-screen elements.