Or: the time Chantal Akerman decided "screw it" and directed a pop bubble-gum serio-comic musical set in a mall where three or four women (including the lovely and quite beautiful in middle age Delpine Seyrig) and a young and older man respectively are either in love or questioning their life choices; if you think they won't wind up with the ones they want, well, maybe you've seen a movie before!

This is Akerman trying Jacques Demy on for size, and its by FAR her most commercial and accessible work. Not every musical number is great and I woild have loved the movie (as opposed to just ranking it as very good/kind of unique) had the filmmaker got a choreographer and included more dancing. But the "Gossip Song" (the one where all the hairdressers are at their stations) is sublime and something I could hear every month or so.

And saying it is Pop Bubble Gum is a self conscious move that is more akin to the Nouvelle Vague influence still in Akerman's bones and it does have an air of heartbreak and sadness behind the words. It is a departure in style, of course, but the spirit of people looking for connections and it falling apart falls in nicely with her other work... and yet it is very funny to think of someone coming to this as their entry point into her oeuvre and saying "wow, that was a bittersweet symphony of French comic romantic ennui bliss! I should see more by her..." Gulp.