Toute une nuit (All Night Long). 1982. Belgium/France. Written and directed by Chantal Akerman. With Aurore Clément, Tchéky Karyo, Angelo Abazoglou. 4K digital restoration by Royal Film Archive of Belgium — CINEMATEK & Fondation Chantal Akerman, under the supervision of cinematographer Caroline Champetier, with the support of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and the Brussels-Capital Region; courtesy Janus Films. In French; English subtitles. 91 min.
Chantal Akerman called this her riff on Madame Bovary, setting adolescent fantasies of romance against the stark realities of adult disillusionment during a one-night stand in “incestuous Brussels.” The arc of love is the form of the film itself. Act One takes place in the heat of a gathering summer storm at night, the air prickling with sexual tension. Act Two takes place at dawn: hushed, spent. Act Three inscribes the lengthening day. And as Akerman plays with the tropes of melodrama—night cafés, jukebox ballads, and almost violent romantic gestures—professional and nonprofessional actors (including many of her friends) enact timeworn patterns of amorous seduction, repetition, and rejection in a series of fleeting encounters. In this strange and hypnotic way, All Night Long is a dress rehearsal for the musical comedy Akerman was also completing at the time, Golden Eighties.