Je tu il elle
Je tu il elle • 1h 26m
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • France
Starring Chantal Akerman, Niels Arestrup, Claire Wauthion
Chantal Akerman’s first narrative feature is a startlingly vulnerable exploration of alienation and the search for connection. In a performance at once daringly exposed and enigmatic, Akerman plays a young woman who, following a lengthy, self-imposed exile, ventures out into the world, where she has two very different experiences of intimacy: first with a truck driver (Niels Arestrup) who picks her up, and then with a female ex-lover (Claire Wauthion). Culminating in an audacious, real-time carnal encounter that brought lesbian sexuality to the screen with a new frankness, JE TU IL ELLE (“I You He She”) finds Akerman wielding her radical minimalism with a newfound emotional and psychological precision.
Up Next in Je tu il elle
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B. Ruby Rich on Chantal Akerman
In this interview, conducted in 2023, critic B. Ruby Rich offers a comprehensive primer to Chantal Akerman’s prodigious first decade of filmmaking.
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Ira Sachs on JE TU IL ELLE
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The Film-School Tests / Knokke, Film 1
Chantal Akerman shot these four pieces in 1967, as part of her application to Belgium’s INSAS film school. Though she dropped out shortly after enrolling, the exercises offer insight into some of the director’s earliest cinematic instincts.
