Written and directed by Chantal Akerman
A lot of romance comes down to the big moment: a breathless sprint to catch someone before they’re gone forever, an agonized wait for the person desired that’s redeemed, a deep embrace, a resolve to never again part and together brave what’s next.
They can mark the triumphant exclamation point for good movies, and do wonders to the afterimage of mediocre ones, so you’d think a movie composed mostly of those make-or-break scenes would be one long release of serotonin, but Chantal Akerman’s Toute Une Nuit, a feature-length compilation of what feels like these decisive moments, runs flat against the law of diminishing returns.
More of a thematic treatment than a movie with plot, narrative, and characters, Toute Une Nuit features a broad palette of people who are chasing love through one night. They’re lonely hearts, they’re longing; they’re heartbroken and pensive; they feel stuck, angry. Some run to those they desire, others run out. Common to them all are these brief moments centered around human connection, or lack thereof, heavily vested in fraught decisions that feel consequential and defining.
So it goes: a scene lasting a few minutes at the most wherein two people either flee or find each other, then repeat. Many sequences are funny, some touching, but as Akerman’s movie goes on, the impact is felt less and less, regressing towards zero. Akerman has the ability to induce a trance, but here it’s closer to a snooze.
That’s surprising, because by Akerman’s standards, Toute Une Nuit is dense with action, easily clearing the ghost-like and monostylistic Letters Home or Hotel Monterey, yet it feels more rote than these films wherein far less happens. There’s a rigor to the latter two, while Toute Une Nuit seems to be Akerman’s idea of a situational comedy, something close to harmless fun and perhaps a wistful bit about the random nature of our connections.
How could a film full of climaxes spark so little joy? How can a movie of peaks come out so flat? Perhaps Toute Une Nuit, with its very short run-up, fails to take off because of that very fact. Maybe foreplay is important if you want the climax to make your toes curl.
Mikkel Frederiksen 