Jeanne Dielman: On / Off

Sight & Sound Best Video Essays of the Year 2023

Synopsis

The light switches in Jeanne Dielman, 23, qua du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles paint their own vivid portrait. They capture Jeanne’s daily routine, bookending the various chores that she conducts throughout the day; the religious-like ritual of turning off each light when exiting a room depicting a financially conscious single mother.

By isolating and highlighting these moments in montage, we build a picture of Jeanne perpetually in motion. Multi-tasking, moving between rooms, always busy, sometimes only a blur at the edge of the frame. Her work is never done, and here we can view every moment in her day as merely working towards the next light switch.

Each switch is a pocket of liminality. Fragments of transition as Jeanne enters and leaves each room, the existence of these spaces defined solely by her presence within them. Jeanne spends much of her days alone, and here we can fully absorb the oppressive loneliness of her empty apartment.

These moments also highlight Jeanne’s unravelling. On the second day, we notice a change as she forgets to turn on the hall light when escorting out a male visitor. This is our first indication that something is wrong. From here we see her enter the bedroom, the light uncharacteristically left on, and turn it off as she enters, stepping into darkness. On the morning of the third day, she turns on the light while her son is still sleeping, catching her error and immediately turning it off again. In isolation, these moments represent nothing but a slightly absent mind, but taken as a whole, and in the context of Jeanne’s methodically exact routine, they feel like great taboos; tragically disruptive tears in the fabric of her life.

In the final image, we see Jeanne turning off the light with a pair of scissors in hand - the improvised instrument that acts out her violent breakdown. How fitting that this final light switch foreshadows the darkness that will be cast on the film’s ending shot, and on Jeanne’s future.

Created by Dan Noall, 2023