Rating: 5/5
Criterion Challenge 2022 | 16/52 | Directed by Chantal Akerman
Sweetheart, at first you wrote so often…
Chantel Akerman reads letters that her mother sent her from Brussels while Akerman lived in New York City. The film is several long takes of places where Akerman used to take walks. We hear none of Akerman’s response letters, only those her mother sent her.
She captured the footage without sound, adding incidental sound effects after the fact to maintain complete control over the soundscape. The sound effects sometimes overwhelm the written letters — a passing car may roar over the words.
Akerman captured the footage in 1976, three years after she returned to Belgium. Places hold memories, yet they change as time passes - haunts close, people move. The footage is like revisiting an old letter. In a letter, people remain frozen in a moment. You, the recipient, are the city, evolving and disconnecting from that time.
I don’t speak to my mother and have never had the type of relationship with my father where we correspond regularly. In my inbox is an email my father sent me this morning — his first in three months. I’ll reply before the end of the week.