Toute Une Nuit, Window Shopping, Nuit et Jourun Divan $#192; New York

TOUTE UNE NUIT

D: Chantal Akerman (1982); with Natalia Akerman, Aurore Clément, Jan Decorte, Pierre Forget.

WINDOW SHOPPING

NUIT ET JOUR

D: Chantal Akerman (1991); with Guilaine Londez, François Négret, Thomas Langmann, Nicole Colchat.

UN DIVAN À NEW YORK

D: Chantal Akerman (1996); with Juliette Binoche, William Hurt, Stephanie Buttle, Barbara Garrick. Years ago I found a book of stills from Chantal Akerman's arty movies, scenes from Eastern Europe in the early Nineties -- all gray and transitional, lots of old people wandering around like ghosts. But most of Chantal Akerman's movies take place in Belgium or France, and Akerman's France is France only more so. Toute Une Nuit is a night in Brussels -- people answering phones and standing outside of windows, dancing together in bars, and smoking. Then there is her weirdly conventional Hollywood movie, Un Divan à New York (aka A Couch in New York), with William Hurt and Juliette Binoche, about an overly popular Parisian girl and a depressed New York psychiatrist trading apartments and (because it's a Hollywood movie) lives. Draw your own sitcom identity mix-up conclusions, but it's quirkily adorable despite its stereotypical plot line. Akerman, director of over 20 films and writer of about half of those, first became famous with Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 108C Bruxelles in1975. Now, most people who know Akerman know her for Nuit et Jour (Night and Day), which is about a woman with two lovers -- one by day and another by night. She spends pretty much all her time in bed, and no one gets hurt until the very end. But Akerman's most eccentric work to date is Window Shopping, a French musical, set in a mall, part Shakespeare, part Grease. There are salon girls in tank tops and matching pleated skirts dancing with blow dryers and a male chorus of mall rats who sing about the resident tease, Lili. Chantal Akerman's versatility is dazzling. She depicts everything with sensual attention: European train stations, women kicking men abruptly and quietly out of bed for no apparent reason, mall politics. The girl's a genius.