After seeing The Meetings Of Anna for the first time, and really loving it, I wanted to explore more of the filmography of Belgian director Chantal Akerman. News From Home (1977) is a critically acclaimed avant-garde documentary that she directed that I decided to take the plunge on. It’s basically a series of long takes, location shoots, of New York streets and subways from the late 1970s, apparently the areas that Akerman walked around and used when she was living there. The only narrative comes through the letters that Chantal’s mother sent to her during this time, which Chantal reads out as narration. We don’t hear Chantal’s replies and often the sound of the street or the subway will overwhelm the reading. Knowing that this was the concept of the movie, I wondered how it could sustain my attention for 90 minutes. True, I did have to watch it in two sittings but only because I started it late on a Thursday night and had to pause it being so tired. Otherwise, I did begin to find myself acclimatising to the rhythm of the movie – the stillness of just observing urban spaces, the slow moving cars or the curious gaze of pedestrians who notice the camera (filmed by cinematographer Babette Mangolte). I began to look forward to each letter after the silence and stillness, and as one other commentator points out, we begin to see a portrait of Chantal herself through the mother’s letters, mainly her persistent questions to her daughter, begging her to write back more regularly, to confirm that she’s received the twenty dollars she’s sent, etc. It was slowly absorbing and meditative, particularly thinking about city spaces that seem deserted and almost empty – what’s in those dilapidated buildings? Or to see a time capsule of New York in the 1970s, without nostalgia or mythic dimension. It’s not glamorous Manhattan or seedy Times Square – just basic city streets where people commute, work and wander. I look forward to revisiting News From Home one day and seeing more of Akerman’s odes to urban spaces, her mother and time. Streamed from the Criterion Channel. Recommended.
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