Episode 402: JE TU IL ELLE (1974)

“Foolhardy.”

That’s how director Chantal Akerman described her 1974 film JE TU IL ELLE, which she also wrote and starred in. Her partially autobiographical character drifts at an emotional distance from herself, rearranging her room and binge eating and drafting letters to lost love, for the first 30 minutes.

On paper, it sounds pretty flat. Those extended scenes of mundanity are punctuated by listless narration and a couple precious human interactions. Her hookup with a random trucker and her return to a former lover give the story structure, but they also give us a window into the young woman’s emotional state that her own voiceover narration tends to elide.

For a couple of us, JE TU IL ELLE (“I, YOU, HE, SHE”) is the first time we’ve discussed Akerman. It’s as exploratory and halting and caveat-ridden as you’d imagine, but honestly, on this episode of Trylove, these four straight white guys talk not completely stupidly about this groundbreaking work of queer feminist filmmaking.

References:

“Impulsive Desires and Getting Personal” by Lucille Hanson for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/09/20/impulsive-desires-and-getting-personal/

“Down, Out, & Paradise: Chantal Akerman’s Tricky Triptych Je Tu Il Elle ” by Chris Polley for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2026/09/20/down-out-paradise-chantal-akermans-tricky-triptych-je-tu-il-elle/

“Je tu il elle” by Tamara Tracz for Senses of Cinema (May 2013): https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/cteq/je-tu-il-elle/

“Chantal Akerman: The Pajama Interview” by Nicole Brenez for Lola Journal (2011): http://www.lolajournal.com/2/pajama.html

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