Portrait of a Lazy Woman

MOVIE #2,395 • SCORE 5/10 • 03.13.25
SERIES: ALBERT & AKERMAN

I feel like she's made the same short film three times now? Letter from a Filmmaker: Chantal Akerman, Family Business: Chantal Akerman Speaks About Film and this one (also known as Sloth and released as part of the anthology Seven Women, Seven Sins) all seek to unpack the method and motivations behind making a movie. They are about the struggle of creativity, more or less. Though we learn a lot about Chantal here (she has atonal music set for her morning alarm clock, she makes very loud swallowing sounds when she drinks liquid, etc.), this is starting to feel like tired territory.

This is not to say that making a film about laziness, about motivation, about the artistic struggle is not a worthy topic — I’m just not sure there’s any more juice left to squeeze from this orange. The artifice shines through, as well. When she says she'll clean the table, the table we see is clearly a staged foreground of movie props. She isn’t being lazy, she’s making a movie: we’re watching it! There’s proof!

Every so often we cut to a woman playing the cello (also not being lazy). The film ends with an unbroken take of Chantal smoking a cigarette after she says “I'll smoke a cigarette then make the bed.” We never see her make the bed (she halfheartedly throws the blanket but that doesn’t count). The cello plays us out.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
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A director trying to overcome her own laziness, to shot a film about laziness. It was released on October 1, 1986.