Soporific

It was approaching midnight when the movie began. Although it was almost my bedtime, I was intrigued by the title, "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" (1975) TCM described the plot as involving a single mother of a teenage boy who leads the life of a lonely young widow, except that each afternoon she welcomes a paying gentleman to her bedroom. It's a Belgian production by the famous Chantel Akerman and stars the popular Delphine Seyrig. I had to start watching.

As the woman went about her daily routine, I was beginning to prepare to stay up to see where the story was going. Then, she took a bath. I watched her sit in the tub for at least 15 minutes. Tastefully posing in profile, she soaped her upper body. Then she rinsed the same area, carefully caressing herself in the process. Fifteen hygienic minutes. . . . Apparently, the story wasn't going anywhere. I, on the other hand, went to bed.

(If I had stuck it out, I now know that I would have had to endure 201 total minutes. Do you suppose Monty Python's "Fat Belgian bastards" are into that kind of thing?)