The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, November 11-17
Je tu il elle (1976)
Directed by Chantal Akerman
Few filmmakers have been as formally inventive as Akerman. From feminist masterwork Jeanne Dielman (also at MoMA’s series) to her recently debuted swansong No Home Movie, she expanded the boundaries of cinema by creating a revolutionary symbiosis between content and structure. This innovation is on full display in I, You, He, She. The film follows Julie, portrayed by Akerman, as she grieves one relationship then embarks upon two new ones with a man and a woman, respectively, and is ostensibly simple in its aims. But the structure employed, that of a three-act play in which each segment is strictly delineated, is essential to understanding the character’s motivations and thought process. It’s the type of choice that perhaps only Akerman would have made, and it’s part of the reason the film resonates so powerfully with anyone who has been heartbroken and tried to pick up the pieces. John Oursler (November 15, 3:30pm; November 16, 4:15pm at “To Save and Project: The 13th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation“)