DVD - Hotel Monterey

Hotel Monterey explores an aging Manhattan hotel in the 1970's, along with, sometimes, its occupants. Akerman trains her camera on the hallways, lobby, elevators, and various rooms in the hotel.

While this would, ultimately, work better as a series of stills in a gallery, rather than a film, there are interesting moments in it, but its hour long run time (completely silent) is prohibitive for almost anyone except hardcore fans of observational cinema. There are moments that definitely peak interest, such as a group of elderly women who sit in the lobby, or rooms that are captured with their occupants in them, but this is the kind of film I wouldn't recommend unless your into staring at the same thing for long periods of time.

DVD - News From Home

It is the late 1970's and Chantal Akerman has just moved to New York. Through locked off shots of the city in a wide variety of locale's, and voice over of Akerman reading her mother's letters to her over this period of time, the audience is given a sense of the kind of varied emotions a parent goes through when their child not only leaves home, but ventures across an ocean to a new, mysterious place.

News From Home can be incredibly slow at times, with long shots of the city (anywhere between two and three minutes long, probably having been shot on 100' reels of 16mm). It's the letters from Akerman's mother that put the film in perspective and give it a life. Otherwise it's just a bunch of shots of New York City, and, for the most part, not always interesting ones. The film is interesting, to a point, but it should really be about half of its running time, or less.

DVD - La Chambre

This is the synopsis from Criterion's website - In Chantal Akerman’s early short film La chambre, we see the furniture and clutter of one small apartment room become the subject of a moving still life—with Akerman herself staring back at us.

That pretty much sums up the film. It's multiple 360 degree shots of Akerman's apartment, for about ten minutes. Not much else to say.