Les Rendez-vous d'Anna

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Les Rendez-vous d'Anna
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna poster.png
French theatrical release poster
Directed by Chantal Akerman
Written byChantal Akerman
Produced byAlain Dahan
Starring
CinematographyJean Penzer
Edited by Francine Sandberg
Production
companies
  • Hélène Films
  • Unité Trois
  • Paradise Films
  • ZDF
Distributed by Gaumont
Release dates
Running time
127 minutes
Countries
  • Belgium
  • France
  • West Germany
LanguageFrench

Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (known in English as The Meetings of Anna and Meetings with Anna) is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Chantal Akerman.

Contents

Plot

Anne Silver, a Belgian filmmaker, is travelling through West Germany, Belgium, and France to promote her new film. Along the way, she meets with strangers, friends, former lovers, and family members, all the while traversing an isolating and increasingly homogeneous Western Europe. Among the people she meets is her own mother, to whom she talks about falling in love with a woman who she only talks to over the phone now. At the end, she is back in her apartment, listening to messages on her answering machine, alone as ever. The calls are from various friends and/or lovers, who express frustration at her unavailability, and also a manager who wants to make sure she shows up for all of her promotional appearances. The last message is from her female lover, who is wondering where she is. Anne does not call anyone back.

Cast

Critical reception

The movie initially was not well received, though it has since risen in prestige. Many critics found fault with what they perceived as a "scaling-back of the stylistic and thematic radicalism" to be found in Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). [1] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on reviews from 6 critics, with an average rating of 8/10. [2] It received the André Cavens Award for Best Film given by the Belgian Film Critics Association (UCC). [3]

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References

  1. Cronk, Jordan; Marsh, Calum (11 January 2012). "Reframed No. 17: Chantal Akerman's 'Les Rendez-vous d'Anna' (1978)". PopMatters . Retrieved 13 November 2022.
  2. "Meetings with Anna". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved 29 October 2015.
  3. Akerman, Chantal (1978). "Les rendez-vous d'Anna". Les Cahiers du GRIF (in French). 23: 146. doi:10.3406/grif.1978.2148 . Retrieved 5 January 2021.