The Historicity, Affect, and Depth of ‘Slow’ Cinema

This paper explores the phenomenon of ‘slow’ cinema, its aesthetic and stylistic features, which allows highlighting a number of important aspects characteristic of this kind of films. First of all, the slow pace of narration helps to build a certain ‘contemplative’ relationship with the viewer. Supported by a complex of cinematographic techniques, it presupposes emotional and intellectual involvement of the viewer and enhances deep and conscious perception of the work. Secondly, the directors’ attention to the problems of time and history, the crisis of interpersonal communication and the difficulties of human adaptation in the conditions of the changing reality form the thematic focus of ‘slow’ films. Emerging at the turn of the 2000s — 2010s and reflecting the crisis mood of the period, ‘slow’ cinema ideologically coincided with the movement of metamodernism, the main provisions of which were formulated by T. Vermeulen and R. van den Akker. In their opinion, such patterns as ‘Historicity’, ‘Affect’, and ‘Depth’ reappeared in contemporary art. This idea is confirmed by the films The Syndromes and a Century (2006) by A. Weerasethakul, The Mourning Forest (2006) by N. Kawase, and Silent Light (2007) by C. Reygadas, which constitute the research subject in this article. The asynchronous present facing the past and the future, the affective ‘discovery’ of the nature of reality and the depth of the worldview — such are the aspects addressed in the ‘slow’ films under consideration. Thus, the relevance of the study lies both in consideration (and comparing) the two trends that have manifested themselves in the first third of the 21st century, and in the interdisciplinary analysis of the films which shows that society is experiencing a breakdown and revision of cultural formations. Post-postmodern movements such as metamodernism, which attempted to find a new way of describing the world, and ‘slow’ cinema designed to renew the film language are among the first exponents of the sociocultural changes taking place.