Chantal Akerman's formalism can come across as cold or distant, especially in this film, the story of a dual love affair; nevertheless, her characters live beyond the concepts they represent or talk about, and there's a genuine compassion there too, however restrained. During the day, Jack and Julie make love; at night he drives a taxi and she wanders Paris, until she meets the man who drives the taxi in the daytime, Joseph, and begins an affair. It's a waking dream of a film - no-one needs to sleep, apparently - and a complex portrait of Paris, a city both alive and isolating. Julie is perfectly happy to compartmentalise her life, loving Jack and Joseph equally while they, in turn, become more jealous and possessive. The final shot is miraculous.

The final shot of this movie is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Ok, so its kinda boring to describe something as "A Feminist Response to _____" BUT... Nuit et jour is a gleeful feminist respone to Jules st Jim! Akerman ditches Truffaut's violent, fatalist love triangle in favor of one far more casual, and sporting a decadent depiction of romantic inertia. Instead of the female lead being defined against the titular leads, the male leads are defined by the female love interest as she relates to them, as night and day. As such, they are painted as diametrically opposed, but only as they are defined against Julie. The ending is incredible, Akerman totally dunks on Truffaut.

Fun to watch with a friend who was similarly enthralled and also found a lot of themselves in this movie (for better and for worse!) Does Mia Hansen-Love like this movie? Would screen well with Eden.

After being put under the spell of Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles last week I decided to investigate the nebulous filmography of Chantal Akerman a bit a further. Unfortunately, my first outing with her has proved to be almost the exact opposite of what made Jeanne Dielman so remarkable; where the former was hypnotic in it's brutal austerity and Akerman's refusal to let the audience glimpse into the mind of the protagonist was curiously alluring, Night & Day is merely the same tired story of lover's ennui and romantic unrest we've seen ten thousand other hot young know-nothing know-it-all French people go through.

Painfully maudlin and tedious.

In “Night and Day,” Julie(Guilaine Londez) and Jack(Thomas Langmann) are a happily in love couple. So much so, that they barely make any effort to get out of bed. But soon enough they realize it would be nice to have food or furniture. So, Jack gets a job as a taxi driver, trading shifts with Joseph(Francois Negret).

“Night and Day” is a pleasant diversion that one could argue maybe Chantal Akerman could have taken further. Still, it’s an interesting melange of styles, that also includes a musical number at one point, showing a Paris where the only ways to get around are by car or walking. At its center are two people living together in a bubble where even the nude frolicking is innocent and there are no telephones.

Ok, so its kinda boring to describe something as "A Feminist Response to _____" BUT... Nuit et jour is a gleeful feminist respone to Jules st Jim! Akerman ditches Truffaut's violent, fatalist love triangle in favor of one far more casual, and sporting a decadent depiction of romantic inertia. Instead of the female lead being defined against the titular leads, the male leads are defined by the female love interest as she relates to them, as night and day. As such, they are painted as diametrically opposed, but only as they are defined against Julie. The ending is incredible, Akerman totally dunks on Truffaut.

Fun to watch with a friend who was similarly enthralled and also found a lot of themselves in this movie (for better and for worse!) Does Mia Hansen-Love like this movie? Would screen well with Eden.

Within the first minute, I knew I would hate this movie. This movie is French. That term in my vocabulary means that this film has certain qualities characteristic of French films. And these particular characteristics, I hate.

But first, I hasten to add that I love many French films such as Amelie, Dadealus, Eyes without a Face to name a few.

It is the films like this one that I hate, hate, hate. In this case, the symptoms present as wooden actors who deliver their lines in a monotone with many pauses while looking straight out at the camera (throughout the whole movie!); affect that is incongruent with the event taking place or is merely inauthetically signified; and stiff, enigmatic utterances.

Watch instead West Side Story.

I'm a bit underwhelmed. It's not a bad film, I like the script and the pacing, but the acting is very stiff and inconsistent, which in a film as talky and supposedly full of passion as this hurts more than usual. It's not consistent enough for me to say it's deliberate, but I suppose some of it does create a distancing and melancholic effect that might be intentional. It doesn't ruin the film, since I otherwise quite like what it does and how it does it, but felt there was potential for more.

A cadeira velha onde estava sentado beliscou a minha bunda enquanto via esse filme.

In “Night and Day,” Julie(Guilaine Londez) and Jack(Thomas Langmann) are a happily in love couple. So much so, that they barely make any effort to get out of bed. But soon enough they realize it would be nice to have food or furniture. So, Jack gets a job as a taxi driver, trading shifts with Joseph(Francois Negret).

“Night and Day” is a pleasant diversion that one could argue maybe Chantal Akerman could have taken further. Still, it’s an interesting melange of styles, that also includes a musical number at one point, showing a Paris where the only ways to get around are by car or walking. At its center are two people living together in a bubble where even the nude frolicking is innocent and there are no telephones.

"Julie says if it goes on like this, it will be next year right now."

Akerman's take on the weird space between grown-uphood and adulthood (see: Frances Ha, Scott Pilgrim, a bunch of other stuff) is, despite the almost happy-go-lucky vibe you often get from the main female character, melancholic to the bone. Every beautiful moment doesn't get undercut as much as it gets an annotation: "this won't last, this can't last, nothing lasts and least of all this". And it doesn't. Julie and Joseph's meeting and the dance close to the end got me choked up a little bit.

It was maybe like Jules Et Jim -but emancipated...

This one works in the mode of a fable or fairy tale with iconic characters, and early on when they're engrossed in love and it seems like it might be a musical, I loved it. But as the story moves on, it enters into a more realistic mode. That, in fact, seemed to be the whole point: that relationships break down precisely because the real world inevitably encroaches upon our idealized romances. But I, personally, had a hard time reconciling these two modes. The characters were so (intentionally) shallow I had a hard time caring about them once the travails of the real world had shattered their illusions.