A suburban life, held at a distance

Akerman keeps her camera still and at a respectful distance, and lets Jeanne's routine play out in full. The film never explains her, and the long takes make you watch for the cracks.

In a 1995 interview Haynes named Jeanne Dielman as a film he studied for its style. Safe follows Carol White, played by Julianne Moore, a housewife in the San Fernando Valley who gets sicker and sicker while no doctor can say why. Haynes holds her in long, still takes, often small in the frame.