News from Home (1976) User Reviews

Another intriguing experiment from the wonderful Chantal Akerman

[runamokprods · 7/10 · 1 June 2010]

Chantal Akerman is arguably the most important and interesting female director of her era, yet she is sadly under-known here in the U.S. The range of her work is astounding, from largely experimental 'difficult' works like this, to frothy musical-comedy, to dark, thoughtful dramas, and just about everything in between. I'm so glad Criterion is finally putting out much of her early work.

As for this film, it's an interesting experiment, if far from Akerman's most important.

It's all images of New York City, mostly still at first, with ever more movement as it goes along. The soundtrack is all letters to Ackerman from her mother in France being read aloud over the images. Odd as it sounds, it easily held my attention, though never really got emotionally involving. Once again, Akerman's city images are great, evoking Edward Hopper's paintings. But both the images and overall impact seem less powerful to me than Akerman's somewhat similar - and to my taste far better -- 'Hotel Monterey'.

However with this kind of experimental film, everyone is likely to react differently, and I'd urge you to see it for yourself.

A Very Interesting Experimental Piece

[framptonhollis · 8/10 · 30 August 2015]

*Although the review only technically includes spoilers, considering the film has no actual plot, the review may take something away from the experience*

Chantal Akerman is one of the greatest experimental filmmakers of all time. "Jeanne Dielman" has become one of my favorite films, and I really liked "Hotel Monterey". Her films are normally very, very slow, and they attract a very specific audiences. Of course, I am part of the audience that Chantal Akerman's films attract, so I was very interested in seeing this film.

It has been on my watch list for some time, and I was very glad to finally watch it. Was it good? Yes! It is a great experimental film, and the best Akerman film I've seen since "Jeanne Dielman".

The concept, itself, is quite interesting to begin with. Chantal Akerman reads letters sent to her by her money, against images of daily New York city life. These letters from home, eventually, start becoming obscured by the loud noises of city life. This could be considered symbolism of Akerman's own personal response to these letters that have been given to her. This, clearly, makes "News from Home" Chantal Akerman's most personal work.

The actual images of New York city life are very well shot, themselves. If this film was absent of the narration, it'd still be a quite interesting portrait of city life, although that would make the film a bit less interesting. Every single image is beautiful and interesting, especially the last 10 minute long shot pulling away from a NYC dock.

Although it's a great film, there are flaws. At times, some of the shots, when absent of narration, run on a bit too long. Sometimes I even found myself zoning out, thinking about other things. If Akerman trimmed down some of these scenes, the film would've been a bit better and easier for me to view.

While other Akerman films may be far more influential (including the previously mentioned films "Hotel Monterey" and "Jeanne Dielman"), this is still a great film for Akerman fans! If you like slow cinema and the other works of Chantal Akerman, I highly recommend you watch this movie. However, it is a film that isn't for most audiences, so if you're just some guy who likes movies, you will probably not like this movie very much.

70s New York

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 17 June 2019]

Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman reads letters from her mother with her concerns about the twenty one year old in the big strange city. The visual is Chantal recording the everyday lives of regular people in the city which is almost a reply to her mother. It is experimental for its time and very fascinating. As a piece of nostalgia, it is fascinating to see 70's New York in an everyday setting. There is no character or plot or flashiness. It's simple street level observational filmmaking. Even as a travelogue, it's a little interesting.

Fleeting world

[chaos-rampant · 24 March 2016]

This is about the fleeting world out there, the world that comes and goes and fills the senses with all ten directions.

On one hand is the massive city, New York before the makeover in all its brownstone squalor and sleepy routine. The whole film is a series of languid pans of the camera, they capture people waiting in subway stations, a black woman sitting outside on a chair, kids playing in a fire hydrant, street views and Bronx projects, coming and going. If like me, you're drawn to films that wander, you'll be exhilarated to see this.

On the other we have letters that Akerman's mother sent to her while she was in New York as a young girl, she reads these to us in quiet voice-over. She has such a soothing, calm voice. A mother who worries like all mothers do, who wants to know how she's doing, complains that she never writes back, tells about her health and how the store is doing and who got married to whom and that the heat is making her listless.

It's a quietly captivating thing, all in the contrast of exchange between a city that is cold and nameless, vast, and a glad voice from a faraway home that whispers news, love and worries. At one point the engine noise of cars in a four-lane boulevard drowns out a letter being read.

It swims from loneliness to familiarity, because it's all a part of it. And I'm reminded again of how I love seeing America through European eyes. I rank it up there with Varda's Documenteur (it's LA there) as views I'll carry with me, another Belgian, another spirit that wanders freely.

It ends with a long unbroken shot of Manhattan from a ferry vanishing in the distance with seagulls flying overhead. Forget about 'experimental' and 'minimalism', the shots being geometric or not; that's just the brush. A summer was lived.

News from the lost past

[jread-5 · 10/10 · 12 May 2021]

Chantal Akerman was a young Belgian woman who had come to America to make movies. Unfortunately for her, she moved to New York City at a very low point in its history: the Summer of 1976. The Summer of Sam. The year of "Ford to City: Drop Dead." Graffiti everywhere. Burned out buildings. Garbage. Heat. Blackouts.

Chantal's camera records all this squalor in exquisite, non-judgmental long takes. You can almost smell the place. Somehow, the city arranges itself for her in fascinating compositions of color, personalities, and activities. What's that guy over there doing? What is that woman thinking about?

In counterpoint to the visuals, Chantal reads irritating letters from her beloved mother complaining that Chantel does not write frequently enough and When is she coming home? But how could she come home when there is such rich, baroque subject matter for her camera? We know that after her mother died several years later, Chantal committed suicide. The tension between her mother's letters and the power of the city is palpable.

Chantal has left us this gift of a precise record of a time and place that existed once and will not exist again. The final extremely long shot, taken evidently from the Staten Island ferry, is of Manhattan with its Twin Towers still present slowly receding and disappearing in the mist.

Wistful, lovely, and unexpectedly beautiful

[I_Ailurophile · 10/10 · 27 June 2023]

Sometimes the most simple and unlikely of ideas are among the best. At first glance this doesn't sound like much, or at least not the type of picture one would customarily flock to: long shots of various locations in New York, accompanied by voiceovers. Yet there's a deep, gratifying elegance and heartfelt sincerity in this that's unmistakable. Straightforward as the lengthy and mostly unmoving shots are, there's an artistry to Babette Mangolte's cinematography that's entrancing, as this very particular perspective on the Big Apple makes it feel fresh and new, almost like a series of paintings. The imagery of urban sights is unexpectedly beautiful, whether of its own accord or thanks to Mangolte's keen eye, in a way that we tend not to see (or allow ourselves to see) on a day to day basis. And that's before we even consider one of the chief truths of this documentary - that as much as anything else it's a snapshot of New York in the 1970s, and moreover a kind of time capsule. Perhaps some of the structures, facades, and infrastructure remain the same, perhaps not, but between the vehicles or people who cross in front of the camera and their clothes, the shops and ads that greet our eyes, and in some measure even the ambient sounds to greet our ears, we're getting a glimpse of a specific place at a specific time, and it's a minor joy on that basis alone. One is naturally reminded of Agnès Varda's 'Daguerréotypes,' incidentally also released in 1976, and for as enchanting as that was it's a very high compliment indeed.

Then there's the other core element of 'News from home,' the voiceovers of filmmaker Chantal Akerman. As she reads letters that she had received from her mother we also get a small taste of life in Belgium at the time, and especially of the friends, family, and neighbors that Akerman herself had known. More than that - as the letters date to the period when Akerman had lived in New York, often traversing these very streets and subway lines, we are party in some measure to the relationship between her and her mother. The title becomes not just a moment captured in time of the city, but a reflection on a parent's love for their child, of wistfully missing someone who is far away, and in the very least of thinking of Home when we've gone far afield. (Or perhaps, too, a peek at the unspoken disparity between the perspectives of parent and child.) Thus is an air of fond remembrance infused into the presentation, a gentle warmth that couples neatly with the nostalgia of writing letters and the audiovisual visitations to this one time and place. The result is plainly lovely, bewitching, and even heartwarming to some degree. Why, there's almost a sense of whimsy to it all; one can readily imagine a work of fantasy or science fiction that adopts the same tack, showing us a distant world or landscape while letters from home provide a kernel of living, breathing story, whether it's a fragment of narrative or, as in this case, soft emotional context. That such feelings can be evoked by these eighty-eight minutes speaks very well to the power of cinema generally and, here, to the underappreciated genius of Akerman as a filmmaker.

I'll be honest: I love this. Plainspoken as any one-line synopsis is I didn't truly know what to anticipate, but in no time at all after I sat to watch I came to adore it. Many are the movies that have been made about someone moving to The Big City, and missing home, and all the goings-on or misadventures they might get up to in that scenario, but such fare is always embellished for effect, whether comedic or dramatic. Inasmuch as there could be a comparison to such fictional works 'News from home' is much the same concept, except it's perfectly Real and Authentic, and stirs the viewer's thoughts and feelings with that genuineness alone. Outwardly unsophisticated as the craft may be, the skill, intelligence, and care that went into it is indisputable, and the end product speaks for itself. This film is a pleasure. I vaguely assumed I'd appreciate it just for Akerman's involvement alone, and still I'm so very happy with how excellent it really is. By all means I can understand how this won't appeal to all, though as far as that goes the premise should be all the fair warning needed to turn away those who aren't receptive. Yet for viewers who enjoy the quiet, thoughtful side of the medium, or those who find joy in the mundane, I can't overstate what a great treasure this is. 'News from home' is a sublime picture that strikes a rather unique but meaningful chord, and I'm glad to give it my very high, hearty recommendation.

Unusual glimpse into 1976 New York

[pbgray-50495 · 6/10 · 22 June 2022]

News from Home is an unique glimpse of life in 1976 New York City. French dialogue notwithstanding, the visuals offer nostalgic views of Mid-1970's people, fashions, style, grit and grime. For those interested in automobiles this is a great walk down memory lane identifying car brands and models long ago forgotten, streets and avenues that have changed in the past 46 years and fleeting views of the World Trade Center through the New York haze. Take trips on the subway and drive down 10th Ave. See people walking the streets of New York with heads held high rather than buried in mobile phones, and life without email, chats, and the internet.

The film ends with poignant extended scenes from lower Manhattan on board a Statue of Liberty ferry with views of the World Trade Trade Center twin towers reaching into the clouds.

A seminal work by a groundbreaking filmmaker

[Robert-1984 · 10/10 · 18 September 2020]

This is a seminal work by Akerman that re-examines the relationship between camera and voice - the documented and the personal, expressing the spirit of mid 1970s New York.

Time Capsule

[mollytinkers · 6/10 · 13 May 2021]

It's weird, but that's what makes it great. My mother said that I was born an observant, not a participant; and this film is proof. To be honest, I wouldn't classify this as a movie.

Almost two hours of a camera set up for symmetrical static shots, pan shots that range from 90 to 360 degrees, and track shots from moving transportation all while capturing the mundane comings and goings of the residents of New York City, as the director reads aloud handwritten letters from her mother.

If you make it through 15 minutes without turning it off, I salute you. If you make it 30 to 45 minutes, consider yourself a trouper of cinema. If you view News From Home in its entirety, you're serious about saturating yourself with moving pictures.

I watched 45 minutes and stopped. The next morning, I finished the film. I guess I'm not saturated yet.

Good luck.

News From Home

[bretttaylor-04022 · 10/10 · 21 October 2023]

I honestly did not know what to expect.

The Synopsis read "Chantal Akerman films New York accompanied by her reading letters from Home of her Mother" and that is exactly what it was.

I like films that are inspiring in the way that as your watching it, you start to think i can do that, you just need a camera.

It is fascinating seeing New York in the 70's and it looks so familiar because of all the other films i have watched set in New York.

Her Mother comes across as slightly annoying and still trying to be overbearing even though she is 1000's of miles away.

The beauty is in the simplicity of the idea and the mundanity of what she films.

Your appreciation probably varies with your relationship with NYC

[thomasam32 · 6/10 · 23 January 2022]

I didn't know any of Ackerman's work until a few years ago but now I've seen this and the Hotel Monterey. The Hotel Monterey is claustrophobic and, frankly, spooky but also makes it hard to avert your eyes. News from Home is mainly outdoors and doesn't have the same effect but the scenes are still small in their own way.

I first went to the city in the 70s with my father. We'd mainly go to the spots you'd expect: baseball games, the twin towers, midtown. I think this creates a fascination about life back then because I have hazy memories of a very different city. If you like getting drawn in by a certain nostalgia you'll be immersed by this to a certain extent. Even though I was however I couldn't help but feel like the scenes went on several beats too long. If anything I wanted a more extensive videologue of the city from that time.

It's tough to make it through in one sitting unless you're only partly paying attention. If you're the right audience it's worth it. If you aren't you'll either hate it as you get through or turn it off early on. I kind of straddle that, but can't deny that Ackerman's films (the two I've seen) have the quality of living through the time. When in the right mood I love this stuff.

The greatest movie of all time

[otherdutiesasassigned · 10/10 · 27 December 2019]

When colors and shapes and reflections and time all coalesce into the greatest movie experience I have ever had.

Contrasts

[ricardojorgeramalho · 6/10 · 13 April 2023]

This is certainly a different movie. It won't be for everyone's taste, but it still manifests unquestionable virtues.

A simple idea, explored to the limit and which, in essence, works, although we can question whether it has not been stretched too far. It would be a perfect short or medium length film. It was an excessive, repetitive and sometimes monotonous feature film.

However, there are two positive aspects to highlight in this work. On the one hand the documentary aspect. It is a time capsule, which has preserved an hour and a half of the daily reality of New York City in the seventies. Not a simple fleeting glance, or a fiction, with the city in the background, that would be banal. Here we have the real city, the empty streets at dawn, life on the subway, in the empty corners, where life passes peacefully, in the ones full of people, where the hustle reigns. It is a piece of reality, of the daily life of the city and its inhabitants, which is ripped from the past and bequeathed to posterity. Something that touches deeply, in the soul of the spectator (at least in this one, which I was).

On the other hand, the contrast between the human and sentimental richness of the letters read, monotonous and banal in form, but full of life and feeling, and the anonymous coldness of the streets, the cars, the nameless people that fill the screen, but are complete strangers, it shows a solitude of exile, where the urban hustle overcomes the monotony of the indirect discourse.

Finally, it is a film by a young filmmaker who, with little means and some imagination, managed to capture, on film, an important period of her life, expressing in repetitive and banal silences and words, the contradictions that filled her soul as an emigrant and her curiosity, typical of youth.

At War With The Audience

[boblipton · 5/10 · 17 June 2019]

The narrator -- Chantal Akerman, the director of this movie -- reads seventeen letters from her mother. Meanwhile, the audience gets to see shots of a Manhattan where people don't look at the camera, unless they are on the subway or teenaged girls.

It's a far piece from the world of Kenyon & Mitchell, but Akerman is not filming events where the attendees might hope to see themselves in a theater. I watched this movie and tried to figure out where each shot was taken. I think I was pretty successful. That game, however, did not take up the whole of the 85 minutes of the movie, and what was someone who was not an adult in Manhattan in the 1970s supposed to do? After ten or fifteen minutes, I decided that the audience was supposed to make of this a portrait of the recipient of the letter, an individual whose mother thinks she is hungry for news of the family, who never writes about whether she is happy or has made any friends (inference: she isn't and hasn't), and the shots are of her world in New York: first downtown near the River, then a long sojourn in the Times Square Subway Station and finally a ten-minute shot from the stern of the Staten Island Ferry setting out of Manhattan.

I think that with this movie, Akerman is trying to rewrite the relationship between film maker and audience. A film maker makes a film that tells a story, and the audience is the perceptive receiver of that tale, whether it is fiction or fact. We infer plot from the course of actions, from the changes in the personality, status, and relationships of the characters. We derive character from the way in which individual performers differ from the stereotyped roles. What, however, are we to make when you don't see the performer, don't hear her voice, except as a hurried reader of letters?

Well, the stereotypical responses fall neatly into two types. The first type says "Dagnabit! I came here to see a movie with interesting characters and a story! This is awful!" The second says "Ahah, this is new and interesting technique. I get what the auteur is trying to do, and approve, because that makes me a smarter, more percipient viewer." Which are you?

As for me, my reaction is "Interesting technique, but I'd prefer a little more effort from the film maker than forcing me to either fall asleep or make up my own story out of rags and tags." That's because I don't insist on a purely conventional story, but rather than being such an intelligent viewer that I get exactly what Akerman is trying to do, I'd like to have some character.

Arguably, Akerman's masterpiece

[madsagittarian · 2 October 2002]

(possible spoiler in final paragraph, if such a thing applies to a non-narrative film)

I have yet to see Chantal Akerman's signature film, JEANNE DIELMAN..., so for now at least, this may be the finest work by this intriguing filmmaker. NEWS FROM HOME is a non-narrative tone piece in which Akerman reads letters from her mother in native Brussels, describing familial matters. Meanwhile, the visual content of the film is strictly scenes of New York. However, Ms. Akerman has chosen the seemingly most lonely places in the city to illustrate her project. This work is a striking and moving piece on displacement. Her reading letters from a foreign land operates on another plane from the visual decoupage. The fact that the audio and visual content contrast one another IS the point. Not only is she displaced from her home, but she is also a stranger in a strange land. The desolate urban locations accentuate this, as well as those rare shots in a bustling subway in which commuters look disapprovingly into the camera, as if she (or we, the viewer, for that matter) has intruded upon them. (A similar motif occurs in her short film, HOTEL MONTEREY) Too often film writers consider Ms. Akerman's work to be cold, but this, like her other great films of the 70's (JE TU IL ELLE, LES RENDEZVOUS D'ANNA), is a piece about alienation which is very moving.

Postscript: the final nine-minute shot taken from a ferry boat shows the majestic cityscape of Manhattan as Akerman is leaving to go home. (Interestingly, her next film, RENDEZVOUS, is about a filmmaker returning to Brussels) This shot is hypnotic. Ironically, I only saw this film two days before September 11, 2001; that landscape has changed forever.

Call your mother.

[st-shot · 6/10 · 26 February 2022]

In News from Home, independent filmmaker Chantal Akerman ignores her mom while prowling the streets of New York documenting summer in the city circa mid 70s. With mom's letters supplying the only dialogue of glum news from Belgium, she attempts to lay a guilt trip on the non-communicative auteur, too busy recording the mundane everyday to respond back.

Akerman soberly records the New York of its day well, capturing the look and style of a community only slightly fazed at having a camera pointed at them. The subway work in particular is strong with a scene featuring a drab station slowly filling up with straphangers displaying a dreamlike quality. Much of the imagery is mundane and overlong however and patience may be required in sorting the gems from the paste while mom waits by the phone.

What movie did they see?

[Red-125 · 5/10 · 27 September 2020]

News from Home (1977) was written, narrated, and directed by Chantal Akerman.

Chantal Akerman left her home in Brussels for New York City when she was 20 years old. She lived in NYC for three years. She made some experimental films, and then returned to Brussels. She directed her masterpiece, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles in 1975. When she returned to NYC, she returned to her old haunts and made a movie of some of the areas in which she had lived before she was famous.

This film, News from Home, is a series of long takes of scenes in the city. It couldn't have been easy, but she managed to avoid a single striking image of the New York.

Sometimes the camera is still, and we see people walking by. Other times, we peer into deserted diners (think Edward Hopper). Sometimes she records from a moving vehicle. Other times from a subway station platform and then from inside a graffiti-tagged subway car. The last scene shows water--probably shot from the Staten Island ferry.

Think of Rick Steves New York, and then turn around 180 degrees and you get Chantal Akerman's New York. People barely notice her and her cameraperson. She barely notices them.

There's no dialog. There are traffic sounds, but apparently they were dubbed in after the movie was made. What we have instead is Akerman reading letters that her mother sent to her in the early 1970's. The content of the letters fall roughly into three parts: urging Akerman to write and complaining when she doesn't; news from home; desire of her mother that she come back to Brussels.

When Akerman reads the letters, her mother comes across as childish and somewhat pathetic. However, remember that her 20-year-old daughter is living 3,700 miles away, with no steady source of income, and without a working knowledge of English.

As a parent, I say, "Why didn't you write home more often when it meant so much to your mother?" "Why didn't you visit your uncle who lived in New York?" "Why would you want to make this movie?"

There are no breathtaking vistas in this film, so it worked well on the small screen. News from Home has a strong IMDb rating of 7.5. Here's a case where I say, "Did they see the same movie I saw?"

This film came as part of the Criterion Eclipse Series 19-Chantal Akerman in the Seventies. Besides News from Home, this three-DVD set included La Chambre (1972), Hotel Monterey (1972), Je Tu Il Elle (1975), and Les Rendezvous D'Anna (1978). I've reviewed all of them for IMDb.

one of the most important minimalist films

[Ethan_Ford · 2 December 2007]

Following the epic JEANNE DIELMAN Akerman has relocated from old Europe to the very heart of the new world,in other words New York City.She has also made a much shorter film and one without a star,in fact without any stars at all.The images of New York,its streets,subways and buildings ,lovingly shot by camera-person Babette Mangolte,act as counterpoint to the soundtrack,not just the monotonous sounds of everyday life but the sound of the director's voice reading the letters written to her by her mother in Belgium. Akerman left home when she was twenty without telling her parents and this film records the sights and sounds of the strange city she found herself in,her alienation reinforced by the news her mother related from a distant continent.At once a film about America,urban life,loneliness,the place of the spectator,the film is incredibly sensual,a mosaic of images,colours,sounds.

Anti-Cinema

[elrock61 · 1/10 · 5 December 2017]

This film is a self-indulgent affront to Cinema itself. Dull and self-absorbed to an infuriating degree, it stands not only as an insult but as a warning. That it is not only possible to create such an awful film but also to induce otherwise intelligent film- goers to buy into the idea that it's worth watching.

It might have worked had it been presented as a Dada-esque satire about film-making or familial angst. I highly recommend that anyone interested in cinema should watch this, for no other reason than to understand just how bad things can get in "documentary film-making".

An entrancing art piece.

[goboogie · 10 September 2002]

If you've ever wanted to just stand in front of a painting and stare at it, this is your chance. Or, alternately, like a whole gallery of your favorite artist for you spend an hour and a half studying their pieces.

"News From Home" gives you that chance. It isn't a movie for the average viewer, or even the average museum goer. It's introspective, spellbinding and gorgeous, given a chance. I loaned it to a friend and suggested he "let yourself go" while watching it, and he reported "it turned into magic once I let it flow through me."

If you want things that blow up, swear words, and sex, you are in the way wrong place sister. This is one of the best art films I have ever seen, without all that inaccesible interiority of so many other "art" film makers.

It's more like a personal documentary, which sounds impossible to pull off doesn't it? Well, Derek Jarman's "Blue" pales to this private gallery of scenery and emotion, which makes "News" far advanced, cuz "Blue" is my fave of his.

More like, SNOOZE from home!

[Auntie_Inflammatory · 3/10 · 11 September 2019]

I'm not surprised to learn that the writer/director of "News From Home," Chantal Akerman, dropped out of film school after only 3 months. If she had stayed a while longer, she would have learned many things that could have made this into a better, more interesting film such as; camera movements (tilting, panning, zooming), the need to vary your shot composition (medium shots, close-ups, cut-aways), pulling focus, pacing, editing, etc... I haven't seen this many lengthy, wide, stationary shots in a film since the last time I watched an old silent movie from the 1920s!

"NFH" begins with a wide shot of a side street in lower Manhattan. A car goes by. Three people appear in the distance and start walking toward the camera. You think that maybe they're significant in some way and something's going to happen but then they turn and walk off in another direction and the shot changes to another wide shot of a pedestrian-less street that lasts nearly a minute. This is indicative of the whole film. It's mostly made up of wide shots, that are held far too long, where nothing very interesting happens. Finally, around 11 minutes in, the camera-woman actually does a pan and it's underwhelming.

After a while the "action" moves underground, with the stationary camera placed on a subway car. This is even more boring than the street scenes as the camera is trained on 1 1/3 of the car's doors for a whole 3 1/2 minutes, while the train travels from above 59th St. to below Canal St.

Then there's more street scenes with people walking by or standing around, more subway car, more streets, some long stretches without narration... At one point the (stationary) camera is parked on a subway platform in the Times Square station for OVER NINE (9!) MINUTES! Yes, it's just plonked there, on a tripod, unmoving, for what seems like an eternity while trains pass by and people get on/off. Unless you're from someplace so incredibly rural that you've never even seen a train before, this is not interesting! Then it's more streets, more subway... 50+ minutes in, camera-lady remembers that it's actually okay to move the camera occasionally.

Then the film-makers get in a car, point the (still stationary) camera out the window, and drive up what looks like 10th Ave. for ELEVEN (11!) MINUTES! There are no cuts when the car stops for traffic lights, it's all real time. Now, I could understand Akerman wanting to avoid trendy, touristy, obvious places like Times Square or 5th Avenue, but spending ages cruising a dull, industrial-looking street is incredibly boring!

Then there's more subway, more streets, and ultimately, the Staten Island Ferry. The (STILL stationary) camera is plopped down on the stern of the ferry for almost ELEVEN (11!) MINUTES as it travels from Manhattan to S.I., no movement, no cut-aways, no editing.

I guess the one bright spot for anyone who watches this film in a theater is that there are 3 scenes where you can run to the bathroom, go to the concession stand, check your phone, and then return to your seat and the shot on-screen won't have changed!

I understand that this was the '70s and MTV hadn't happened yet but this is all too long, slow, and dull. If "NFH" had been cut down to a quarter or a fifth of it's length it might have made a good short. Once you've seen a 5-10 second shot of an uninteresting street or subway platform, that's enough, you don't need to see another 20-50 seconds!

And what about the "news from home" that narrates this mess? From the sound of the dreary letters, Chantal needs to return to her family in Belgium, pronto! Like, before they all drop dead... Mom is always tired, has problems with her teeth, and sounds depressed. Dad is tired, sleeps poorly, is sick, and has an abcess. Sister, Sylviane, has the flu. Someone named Lydie is sick and her husband wants to leave her for another woman, Nadia has a "female problem," and Freddy has a blood clot. Mom and Dad also have financial troubles. No wonder their daughter wants to stay in grimy, '70s NYC, Belgium sounds like a drag!

If you're a native New Yorker, there's some mild interest in seeing formerly grubby areas that have now become trendy and old subway cars, covered in graffiti, with those metal handles that were so fun to hang on when you were a kid. Someone please tell me where those bright red (?!) busses that were shown parked along 10th Avenue were used. It's also slightly amusing to occasionally see someone walk by who resembles J.J. Walker (in his Dyn-O-Mite! days), Sly Stallone, or a lost member of the Village People but these things are not enough to warrant sitting through this entire film.

Call me crazy (or politically incorrect, if you're a whiner) but I can't help feeling that this film wouldn't be as highly regarded as it is if it had been directed by say, a straight, White, American man instead of a European lesbian. Unless you're extremely interested in NYC in the '70s or you lived on 10th Avenue back then, you'll probably want to skip it.

Tolerance Test

[cougarblue-696-806128 · 1/10 · 19 June 2019]

There are no human actors, no plots or stories to tell, merely scenes from the bombed-out bankruptcy period in the life of New York City. The Artsy crowd or college students on Acid May have been the target audience back in 1977, they likely loved the film, today amusement and entertainment are what film goers seek. Mom, back in France is writing to her to essentially berate her NYC dwelling child for not writing enough and for simply staying away from her loving/choking arms. That's everything friends

Besides some interesting shots of 1970's New York (when we all should have been snatching up real estate), this film is tedious.

[mitchmcc-2 · 5/10 · 27 August 1999]

I saw this film yesterday in a theatre, and admittedly the print looked like it has seen better days. While the idea of letters from home-- in this case from the filmmaker's mother in Belgium-- being used as a narrative device over images is an intersting idea, "News from Home" proves that it's difficult to keep up a device for very long... or, in any case, that it has to be more carefully structured. Besides some interesting shots of 1970's New York (when we all should have been snatching up real estate) and the mesmserizing silence of urban landscape and isolated people, this film is largely tedious.

Not a film and not a documentary either

[Nobody-27 · 1/10 · 26 December 2022]

This film is a perfect example of a film too personal and unrelatable to be of any interest to anyone other than the author herself.

Documentaries are usually safe from such errors as they capture the unexpected and the unscripted so the audience gets their share of real-life surprises (Court and Cortney, Sherpa, Capturing Friedmans, come to mind). Even with less successful examples, I have never seen a documentary that didn't provide something of interest.

That's why so far, for me at least, documentaries have been a safe bet. But, as they say, there's a first time for everything, and this is it.

News From Home is a documentary only in the name of the genre that someone attached to it. In reality, this is a protracted read of soulless letters from a mother to her daughter, talking about the mundane and superficial. It may as well have been made into a bad radio drama, as a failed one act attempt. The letters are presented as the filmmakers lifeless voice-over, and are forcefully paired with unrelated images of dead-end streets, loading docks, and bankrupt businesses of 1970's NYC.

Only if you are a masochist who's enjoys being tortured by a monotonous drone describing someone's flu, cost of postage, or father's low blood pressure, you may be able to make it through this film. Otherwise, News From Home was made for one viewer only, the director/writer herself and I am not sure that it was successful at that either.

news from home

[mossgrymk · 3/10 · 20 May 2021]

The main problem, as I see it, with this extremely depressing film is that much of its target audience (i.e. The suicidal) will not be around to view it.