"...make darkness the point of departure in judging what men call light...." -Marguerite Duras Anonymous streets of New York, exquisitely shot by cinematographer Babette Mangolte, accompany Chantal Akerman's voice-over reading of her Belgian mother's "love letters." "My mother was asking when I'd come back, giving me news of the family, telling me she'd been ill. Some of it, towards the end, outlines the daily life of Belgium and the critical status for Europeans of the 'American myth'....One feels a huge disjunction between European life and the hope one finds in these letters from home, and New York life...." Mother seeks out daughter, Europe encounters America-the old worlds realize there are new worlds. These territories and boundaries are established, but also subtly undermined: Akerman, after all, voices her mother's words, and gives her her vision. Sound track and image track, although technically "married," are separate and parallel; both explore the presence of absence. -Kathy Geritz