Vitalina Varela – Pedro Costa (2019)
It is difficult, if not impossible, to think of a woman in film, who has such a magical, such an overpowering aura around her as does Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela. The minute she appears, stepping…
darkness
Closing Time – Nicole Vögele (2018)
The beauty of Slow Cinema is that directors welcome you to their world and let you explore it in your own way. If you follow one director in particular and have seen all of his/her…
The Woman Who Left – Lav Diaz (2016)
Hooray! I have finally managed to see Lav Diaz’s The Woman Who Left, which won the Venice International Film Festival about two years ago. I’m always a bit behind with those films now, as things have…
The Essence of Place – Susannah Ramsay (2017)
It is 8.30 in the evening. It is dark and wet, although it has stopped raining for a little while. I’m at the RSPB reserve in Loch Lomond, Scotland, and embark on a journey through…
Vanità – Kevin Pontuti (2017)
A bare room. The walls are seemingly made of cold stone. The lighting is low, the darkness overpowers the image, which director Kevin Pontuti has created at the beginning of his new short film Vanità (2017)….
Five – Abbas Kiarostami (2003)
The beach. A beach. Somewhere. It doesn’t matter where we are, and Abbas Kiarostami knows this. What matters is his recording of the soothing and calming waves, small but significant in their way across the…
The nocturnal and the slow
Béla Tarr’s The Man from London (2007) impressed me with its images that had been shot at night. The almost complete blackness of the night, seen through the eyes of a watchman in his tower at…
Story of my Death – Albert Serra (2013)
After his great films Honour of the Knights (2005) and Birdsong (2008), Albert Serra’s Story of my Death (2013) was a highly anticipated film among critics and viewers alike. Serra is one of the key…