Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

You've formed some habits over years of being alone, transactions that take you, towards the gloam, characteristic of your standing, excepting afternoon transplanting, it's as rigid and as set, as a millstone. A subtle change seems to upset the fine-tuned balance, it's got you searching inwardly, looking askance, the equilibrium disturbed, there are things need to be curbed, it's got you wandering around, locked in a trance.

After 30 minutes of uncomfortable fidget I started to become tuned into the monotony of Jeanne's existence and only subsequently struggled with the final half hour, although the ending perked me up. If nothing else this film has the power to get you thinking of your insignificance and, possibly, the chance of you doing something about it.

I watched this film forty years after it was made, in a theater in downtown New York City that plays only art films. Still, I was impressed by the audience's rapt attention over the 3 and 1/2 hours of the film. I too was sitting fascinated the entire time. We seemed to understand that a part of the experience of watching it was familiarizing ourselves with the details of the dignified Jeanne's existence. Every piece of furniture in her apartment is viewed over and over, and her daily routine is so minutely reviewed that it is imprinted in the mind; so, any tiny deviation jumps out as a sinister departure portending -- what? You wait worriedly to find out what it could mean. Mostly you feel a great sadness for someone who is clearly desperate to make ends meet financially, so she and her child will be okay. You see a perfectionist at work as she proceeds through the day, as though the great care she is taking shining and folding and washing will somehow result in safety for her and the child. There is a spirituality in this, and it begins to take hold of you, and you fervently hope for her survival.

Fascinating, powerful, hyper-controlled, super-subtle study of woman slowly coming unglued. Uses its 3 hour+ running time to put you inside the stultifying boredom and ennui of her life, and lets you see the tiny changes in her repetitive days that are powerful and meaningful barometers of the titanic emotions going on behind her blank masque. Not easy or 'fun' to watch. By definition (and intention?) it gets slow to the point of boredom at times. (Indeed NY Times critic Vincent Canby, who loved the film, jokingly warned that watching it 'could be fatal' if one was in the wrong mood.) But everything interconnects in an amazingly thought-out way. Every bit of dialogue (of which there's almost none) leaves a clue, or at least a trace. Fascinating camera-work; almost always static images. with every cut at 90 degree angles. And again, when that rule is broken there are specific thematic and storytelling reasons. A challenging, 'difficult' film, but one not to be missed.

A film that is much more interesting to read about than actually watch. Akerman takes "realism" to a new level, basically setting up a camera and observing a very lifeless, dull person for 200 minutes. That woman, played by Delphine Seyrig, is a prostitute, catering to a client a day in her depressing apartment, as well as a single mother. We study her daily rituals as we occasionally glance down at our watches (or push the call button to see how much time is left). Okay, I get it. The problem is, I got it after the first 10 minutes. I got it, really, from reading descriptions of the film. After that, the remaining 190 minutes aren't especially worth sitting through. Notice that even after 190 minutes of breaking taboos of how not to put the audience to sleep, Akerman forces the (literally) climactic sequence. I think I understand what she was going for here, but it's not especially honest given the rest of the film. It shows that even she had to resort to a cheap narrative trick to end the film. All in all, the film is little more than a gimmick. Though I could have been doing better things with my time, I am glad I finally got to see this. I wasn't really bored out of my mind – like Jeanne Dielman, I went through my own daily rituals while glancing up at the screen. Chantal Akerman did make some accurate observations about the human condition after all, even if they are fairly shallow in themselves.

I can safely say that I have never seen cinema like this before! Set out over a three-day period, we see widowed mother, Jeanne Dielman, go through her daily routine, many tasks played out in real time, the camera stubbornly static, and often, moreso earlier in the film, at waist-height looking upwards, so that Jeanne's head and shoulders frequently disappear out of shot. At first, watching these actions performed in full seems a touch unnerving - this is something that many people have carried out hundreds of times, but we have never before been forced to pay attention to the monotony of daily chores in such detail. However, holding these shots for so long draws the viewer in even further, making them concentrate on every action, so that when even the smallest cracks appear in Jeanne's monotonous routine, it appears to be almost earth shattering, just as the effect this has on Jeanne is equally momentous.

The wonderful Delphine Seyrig here plays Jeanne with an astonishing subtlety and restraint, almost emotionless throughout the three hours and twenty minutes of running time, yet it remains one of the most affecting, powerful performances that I have seen in cinema.