Toute une nuit

A symphony of the city of Brussels by night, its sonic leitmotifs the sound of the street and the sound of footsteps: a nocturne made up of two dozen vignettes involving people who meet, embrace, dance, part ways again, or simply observe the goings on from doorways and stairwells. Detached from any continuous narrative, the film becomes an almost dialogue-free collage. “Akerman devotes such attention to the soundtrack – carefully selected, choreographed and precisely mixed sounds – that her approach has the effect of splitting off the soundtrack from the images and creating a space between them. This creates and sustains an awareness for the fact that the audio and visual tracks are actually separate constructions.” (Barbara McBane) (mg)