
Chantal Akerman films her mother, an old woman of Polish origin who is short lifetime, in her apartment in Brussels. For two hours, we will see them eating, chatting and sharing memories, sometimes accompanied by Sylvaine, Chantal's sister. Also, and to show how small the world has become, Chantal remains in contact with her mother at other times of the year via Skype from lands as far away from Belgium as Oklahoma or New York.... (Full plot summary below)
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Chantal Akerman films her mother, an old woman of Polish origin who is short lifetime, in her apartment in Brussels. For two hours, we will see them eating, chatting and sharing memories, sometimes accompanied by Sylvaine, Chantal's sister. Also, and to show how small the world has become, Chantal remains in contact with her mother at other times of the year via Skype from lands as far away from Belgium as Oklahoma or New York.
Leave your thoughts about No Home Movie.
| Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenWith its focus on domestic interiors (and interior lives), the movie doesn't simply recall Akerman's past efforts; it reveals their roots. |
| Boston GlobePeter KeoughThe rest of the film consists mostly of Akerman talking with her mother, blithely and lovingly, about everyday ephemera and about the past (Natalia was a survivor of Auschwitz), both via Skype and at her mother’s genteel home in Brussels. |
| Antagony & EcstasyTim BraytonThe ingredients look so simple and raw as to be trash, but the film made from them is a piercing, precious, and sad depiction of the human craving for family and contact. |
| NewcityRay PrideResistant, resigned. Asking, listening. Not punishing, but pained. Not deadly, but difficult. Not death, but life. |
| The Film StageEthan VestbyRemoved from anything resembling ostentatious formalism, it fits into what’s typically referred to by cinephiles as a “late master” period, in which the auteur has dropped all pretenses and adapted a full-on laid-back, emotionally direct directorial hand. |
| Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonThe word "personal" is bandied around a lot in film reviews, but it’s hard to think of a work that better fits the description than avant-garde icon Chantal Akerman’s intimate swansong No Home Movie. |
| The New York TimesManohla DargisIf you let it, No Home Movie invites you in first with its intimacy and then its deep feeling. |
| Slant MagazineClayton DillardBy refusing to finitely define Natalia, or reduce her life to a series of biographical details, Akerman elides eulogizing of any sort, dignifying Natalia without personifying her as an idea made flesh. |
| MetroMatt PriggeIn its deliberately boring way, it's riveting - cinema that makes the inessential powerfully, devastatingly essential. |
| Reeling ReviewsLaura Cliffordthose willing to submit to the filmmaker's vision may be surprised that a film consisting of minutes-long takes of barren, arid landscapes, her mother's Brussels apartment and the occasional conversation can have such a powerful emotional build. |