A young woman mops the floor of her kitchen, polishes her shoes, dances, cooks, tapes the door shut and gives an explosive twist to her usual household routine.
A young woman, played by the director herself, enters her kitchen and begins a gradually degenerating household routine. Parodying the everyday, she mops the floor, polishes her shoes, sticks tape over the cracks of the door and gives an explosive twist to domestic life in a Brussels flat.
“Akerman described Saute ma ville as ‘the mirror image of Jeanne Dielman’ in which this person who doesn’t need rules to govern her own life blows its rituals to bits.”
Sean Gandert
“Saute ma ville is supported by images constructed like a burlesque and the performance of an actress that seems to come straight out of a slapstick comedy. This exuberant character is played by the filmmaker herself, who literally bursts in front of a large building (the sounds of the city being omnipresent there), flowers in hand, to get back to her apartment. Akerman’s humming adds an enthusiastic and light touch to this jaunty entrance.”
Nicole Fernandez Ferrer
“The women of Akerman’s films — especially Saute ma ville in its inoperative practice — exhibit a conceptual paradigm in which those still excluded from politics and the space of the polis may still act politically, whether scotching from inside or out.”
Eleanor Rowe-Stefanik
“At first glance, Saute ma ville appears to be a relatively simple story that excitedly records and, through its recording, destabilizes the preordained routine of the young woman tasked with taking care of herself and her living space, or as Lori Marso puts it, “a study in female exuberance, anxiety, boredom, and sensation, chronicling the young woman coming undone.””
Eleanor Rowe-Stefanik
