CANCELED: La Captive

press release: France, Belgium | 2000 | DCP | 119 min. | French with English subtitles

Director: Chantal Akerman

Cast: Sylvie Testud, Stanislas Merhar, Aurore Clément

A privileged young man (Merhar) grows confused and envious when he suspects his girlfriend (Testud) is in love with another woman. This post-Vertigo tale of desire and control starts in an introspective, art film register only to wax into other genres, like the doomed Hollywood melodrama and—in a nighttime, a cappella duet—the musical. Based on La Prisonnière by Marcel Proust, La Captive showcases Akerman's late-career talent for literary adaptation, as filtered through her laconic, queer lens. Preceded by La Chambre (1972), a silent, 11-minute masterwork starring Akerman and influenced by the structural film movement.

A Celebration of Chantal Akerman: Between her wunderkind arrival in the 1970s and her tragic death in 2015, Chantal Akerman was widely revered as one of cinema's most vital and fearless artists. Drawing from art cinema, ethnographic documentary, feminist theory, Jewish culture, popular genres, and the structural avant-garde, Akerman consistently rejected labels in her pursuit of a rigorous, personal cinema. Investing minute gestures, plays of light, and time itself with meaning and emotion, Akerman’s films demand the theatrical experience. This series (re)acquaints us with the genius and audacity of this singular, pioneering Belgian filmmaker.