A certain (nostalgic) tendency of slow cinema

Abstract

Slow cinema is one of the most interesting tendencies of contemporary cinema in recent years. This category has been used to group an heterogeneous number of post-narrative filmmakers of different nationalities that use, mostly, shots with a long duration and little or non-narrative forms in their films. In spite of the terminological evidence of this category, it has nonetheless generated numerous debates and controversies about its temporal aesthetics and its genealogy. This article makes a critical revision of the distinct theoretical currents of slow cinema to try and expose their points of contact and their differences. Some representative works of this tendency are also analyzed with the purpose of showing the evident primitive melancholy that underlines them, as well as to trace possible theoretical connections with the Slow Down movements. To conclude, the author defends the necessity of an aesthetics of slowness that does not consist exclusively in tranquility and peacefulness, nor in the simple inversion of speed, but rather in a search for sensoriality, a representation of everyday life, and a critique of History’s rationality.