Spoon – Laila Pakalnina (2019)
Before I say a single word about Laila Pakalnina’s new film Spoon (2019), I need to thank Elina Reitere and the Latvian Film Institute, who allow me to discover the filmography of Pakalnina. It is…
time
The Tree – André Gil Mata (2018)
Tarkovskian. Tarr-esque. Filmind. André Gil Mata’s The Tree had me thinking a lot, had me admire what I saw and had me marvel over the future of Slow Cinema. Mata is part of a growing…
The suspended step of the stork – Theo Angelopoulos (1991)
There is perhaps no better time for beginning to watch Theo Angelopoulos’ Border trilogy than now. On Saturday, we commemorated the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the visible, concrete border which…
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…
Heimat is a space in time – Thomas Heise (2019)
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to write something that would do justice to Thomas Heise’s Heimat is a space in time (2019). It speaks to me in so many ways, on so many…
Season of the Devil – Lav Diaz (2018)
Those of you who have been with me for a couple of years already know that I have been a huge Lav Diaz fan. Melancholia, my first film by Diaz, thoroughly impressed me and when…
Time in Japanese art and society
Those of you who have been with me for a while will remember that I used to be very keen on establishing a link between traditional Chinese painting and Slow Cinema. Of course, this approach…
Chantal Akerman – Afterlives (Marion Schmid, Emma Wilson, 2019)
Afterlives. The title of the new English-language book on Akerman’s work, edited by Marion Schmid and Emma Wilson, is poignant, painful even, but perhaps the most fitting for this very collection. It’s been almost four…
Escaping time
I didn’t expect my thinking about the possibility of escaping time. It’s one of those age-old science-fiction dreams that people have. Time travel is perhaps the most imagined, the most commonly imagined form of escaping…
Walden – Daniel Zimmermann (2018)
Not so long ago, I picked up Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden. Published in the middle of the 19th century, it is now something of an iconic book about nature, about the woods, about the…