TOUTE UNE NUIT

Brussels on a hot summer night. When the film begins, darkness has already fallen. In the middle of the night, a thunderstorm. The film ends at dawn the next day. What we see: individual moments and short scenes, some characters only for a moment, only in one scene, others a few times throughout the night, resulting in a few short stories. Few people can sleep in the heat of this night. Most are drawn outside, into the streets or bars. Couples meet again or spontaneously start dancing. Other couples break up. A woman leaves her husband, goes to a hotel, but returns home at the end of the night. An older man sits at his desk working late into the night, another sits alone by the open window, listening to the sounds of the sleepless city.

"Many of the encounters that night are only briefly highlighted, while others are portrayed again and again in new situations, resulting in a colorful roundelay of encounters and separations, hopes and disappointments, a roundelay that gains authenticity, even a documentary character, through Chantal Akerman's direct yet delicate approach to her characters. Nevertheless, it is a feature film, albeit a very idiosyncratic one, which is both play and experiment, which observes soberly and interprets calmly, which tells nothing and yet at the same time has so many experiences in store." (Volker Baer, Tagesspiegel, April 7, 1983)