In Les Années 80 Chantal Akerman hoped to realize her longtime dream to make a musical comedy. What emerged instead might be called a study for the musical comedy, embedded in wry humor and provocation, with the central conceit being that we get to watch Akerman herself attempt to put together her first mainstream production, i.e. this musical comedy “about love and commerce,” set in a shopping mall. Auditions, rehearsals, walk-throughs and the final polished product provide the repetition that Akerman requires to make a resounding point about romance and the myths that feed it. Village Voice critic Marcia Pally writes, “(The Eighties) is comprised not simply of episodes where women get their hearts broken but, literally, of the rehearsals of such scenes.... Each silly song with even sillier lyrics (all Akerman's own invention), and each vapid dance routine is performed over and over by some 64 actors so that when Akerman puts them together, one sees the final product with the benefit of one's reaction to all its ridiculous parts. Rarely is doggerel used to such wise effect.... Les Années 80 not only teaches us something about the...folly of l'amour, and the rip-off of romantic entertainments, it offers us an alternative: the telling satisfactions of irony.” Akerman is currently working on the musical comedy The Golden Eighties.