Some use film-making as a tool to reflect themselves and search their identities. With her first important feature, Je, tu, il, elle, Chantal Akerman relays this tradition, which has been established and inherited mostly by generations of female filmmakers, from Maya Deren to Rose Troche and Jennie Livingston. Like Deren, Akerman combines a traditional narrative and surrealistic ingredients, but Akerman's surrealism is more true-to-life than Deren's, as seen in a sugar-only diet of "Je" or a wrestling-like foreplay between "Je" and "Elle." Painfully naked honesty in these scenes shows how seriously Akerman is in need of examining her identity and sexuality.
(The surface of the film extremely resembles Stranger Than Paradise by Jim Jarmusch, completed in 1983; the two films share the three-episode plot and the B/W medium shots by the fixed camera without panning/tilting/dollying. But this may be irrelevant for viewing this Akerman film.)
(The surface of the film extremely resembles Stranger Than Paradise by Jim Jarmusch, completed in 1983; the two films share the three-episode plot and the B/W medium shots by the fixed camera without panning/tilting/dollying. But this may be irrelevant for viewing this Akerman film.)