Chantal Akerman: Golden Eighties

Song, dance and romance charge this joyous hair-salon set musical, but Chantal Akerman’s take on 80s consumerism is anything but frothy.

You can almost smell the hairspray in Akerman’s exuberant but subversive musical about the many romantic entanglements of salon workers in a shopping mall basement. Its natty 1980s style, witty song lyrics, rapturous dance sequences, not to mention a gloriously bitchy male-suited quartet, deliver all the joys of the genre.

At the same time, Akerman critiques the consumerist ‘paradise’ around them, questioning whether love, if it’s tied to conformity, really is the answer.

This May, QFT celebrates one of cinema's mavericks with a season dedicated to filmmaker Chantal Akerman, the first female director to take the number one spot on Sight & Sound's Greatest Films of All Time poll.

You may also like the following events from Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast:

• This Saturday, 10th May, 03:00 pm, Chantal Akerman: Les Rendez-vous d'Anna in Belfast
• This Saturday, 10th May, 06:00 pm, Doc'n Roll Films Presents: We Are Fugazi from Washington, D.C. in Belfast
• This Saturday, 10th May, 06:15 pm, NI Mental Health Arts Festival: Verdigris + Q&A in Belfast

Also check out other Entertainment events in Belfast, Music events in Belfast.