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1

thank god i watched this at home where i get to say morning to my mom tomorrow because if i wasn't i don't know how i'd be able to handle myself right now

5

It's too easy and reductive to say of Akerman that she, in comparison to her male contemporaries, found the heart beating within structuralism. But as affecting as her work is—and News from Home, soundtracked to Akerman reading her the alternately doting, melancholy and ive-aggressive letters sent to her by her mom, is acutely painful at times—it is more accurate to say that the director best understood the applications of structuralism not merely to cinema formalism but to the patterns of quotidian life. Akerman's domestic films from this period explored the crushingly numbed rhythms of interior life, but her New York movies expanded this scope to shared spaces and public existence. News from Home marks the crest of this extrapolation, with…

Review by Sarah ★★★★★ Liked

Sweetheart, at first you wrote so often

2

One hand: this is why I don't want my kids ever to leave home.

Other hand: this is why I can't wait for my kids to leave home and explore the world, as long as they report back to me on what they find there.

This obviously needs to be part of a double feature with Manhattan, right?

I've never lived in New York, I don't know how much of this city still remains, but this New York from 40 years ago is so familiar to me. This is the New York I believe in. Contemporary representations of the city are alien, like a fantasyland, something that exists only in movies. It's overwhelming, the number of people in the world.

1

Memories of lost things fading into unfamiliar spaces.

Review by esther Liked

My favorite moments were the ones where the noise of the city overpowered the narration. Akerman likes reminding us that cinematic imagery is more than just a backdrop for dialogue. And why shouldn't she? Every single shot is perfectly composed. The film is particularly good at showcasing depth, portraying the streets and alleyways of New York as tunnels, highlighting their contradictorily claustrophobic and agoraphobic nature.

But there's no fear in Akerman's gaze. The final shot shows the city shrouded in fog, but as it slowly shrinks, we're allowed an opportunity to contextualize everything we've just seen as much smaller than we thought. Akerman puts it in a box for us, and ostensibly for the family whose lives we get glimpses of through the letters. We never hear Akerman's return letters, but the film itself is her response, news from her new home to report back to her old one.

It made me want to call home to my parents.

2

Emptiness, and metal and stone, infused with dusty, fragile, ancient faces, shielding the flow of blood that so ceaselessly moves forward, ever so forward, so backward, so forward; and the streets continue and twist, and the blood becomes a grid, and the grid expands; and with these faces come homes, and far away from these homes comes partially obstructed news, news of emptiness, infused with dusty, fragile, novel life.

[captured NYC with such mystical, melancholic audiovisual poetry; touched me deeply with the words of her mothers letters, obstructed by the noises of the city, while the imagery transported me to the place in which Chantel left her family to create --

and it fully transports you because the city is…

Review by Sally Jane Black

Knowing nothing going in, I was pleasantly surprised to discover what this film was. Using mostly static footage of New York City with the sound not always particularly matching the action, Akerman reads off letters from her mother. The thing I found most remarkable is that by hearing these letters, we get a sense of Akerman herself, like watching a silhouette form before our eyes. We get a sense of who she is by what isn't said--the fact that her return letters never reach our ears creates an Akerman-shaped void that tells us many of her secrets.

The images, which are at once instantly recognizable as New York City (even though I've only ever been there for a single day),…

2

reminded me to text my mom back :'(

6

when confronted with the responsibilities and implications of smothering intimacy, especially with a family member, we can often retreat inwards or venture towards a far-off physical alienation in which the world becomes a detached series of appearances and systems which we are only marginally a part of -- akerman's mother, having survived auschwitz and experienced the death of her own parents within that persecution, is understandably clingy about her daughter, probably more than any other parent would be. there is no judgement about her parenting, only a clear contrast between the love of a mother and the ambivalent indifference of a modern metropolis; human beings are defined by our connections with the world, and new york city is an escape…

14

this was… remarkable. 

i’ve never seen anything quite like it, and i know right now that i never will again. even if i find something similar, nothing will be on this level.  

Akerman was a mastermind. rest in peace, queen.

….

sometimes it may seem as though this world doesn’t wish us to be together. 

there are times in life where, particularly with family, that you feel a disconnect with people, that it seems that you no longer have anything in common with a person, it may seem like their lives are beyond recognition for you any longer as yours turns to something else entirely, but does that mean that that should no longer be in your life? 

it…

1

One of the most intimate cinematic expenses ever. Akerman is a god.