Les rendez-vous d'Anna

Director: Chantal Akerman

1978 / 127min / 4K DCP

Akerman’s third feature was this transfixing—and, one suspects, quite personal—study of alienation and emotional withdrawal, in which a well-known Belgian director (Aurore Clément), traveling the increasingly homogenized cities of Western Europe to promote her latest movie, eavesdrops on conversations and passes through a series of brief encounters with acquaintances old and new, including a one-night stand with Helmut Griem, a reconnection with ex-lover Jean-Pierre Cassel, and a stiff reception from aloof mother Lea Massari.

“Akerman’s voice appears once in this film, on a voice message left for the wandering heroine: ‘Anna, where are you?’ The same question could be asked of Lea Massari, the actress who plays her mother, and who, 18 years earlier, appeared, and then disappeared, as Anna in Antonioni’s L’Avventura.” —Series curator Genevieve Yue

Distributor: Janus Films

Part of Trains: Long Distance Passages