Unspoken Cinema

Blurring the Bounderies: Galician Cinematic Landscape as a Transnational Character (Vimeo) 10'54" (Eva Álvarez-Vázquez) 23 Mar 2025 "Wondering what this landscape might mean to other viewers, I decided to explore the strategies that these filmmakers use in their purpose of showing the Galician rural landscape and making the viewer melt into it. To this end, my video essay ultimately reveals a message of preservation of the rural and coexistence with the environment."

 Latest addition to the Library page: "The nonconformist and radical visual and representational culture presented by filmmakers like Tarr can decisively impact how the discipline of architecture deals with the tasks of observing, documenting and communicating. These films might not contain extraordinary spaces from a conventional architectural design point of view. Nonetheless, the contemplative nature of slow movies offers authentic and unprecedented aesthetic, socio-political and experiential perspectives on architecture. Slow films visualise spatial experiences that are not common in the mainstream. The obvious emphasis on spatiality turns the films into an untapped source of novel spatial techniques and experiences." The Cinema of Béla Tarr: The Architectonics of Time, Movement and Hapticity Hamid Amouzad Khalili; 27 Mar 2025

 I commissioned Claude Sonnet 3.7 to write me a poem with the metaphor of Contemplative Cinema as a broken bowl and the frustrated look of criticism upon it... and 5 secondes later: Photo generated by AI (Firefly) The Broken Bowl The critic sits before the broken bowl of contemplative cinema, tools of analysis scattered uselessly beside it. The bowl refuses to be put back together, refuses to become what criticism demands. Light falls across its jagged edge, illuminating nothing that can be measured, named, dissected with academic precision. What to say of emptiness? How to capture in language the film that withholds, that shows the mountain and not the climber, the room and not the conflict, the face and not the thought behind it? The critic reaches for theory but finds it inadequate before the stubborn materiality of silence, the insistent presence of time unadorned by plot. Hours pass in the darkened theater. A single shot holds: a woman gazing out a window. Nothing happens. ...

Latest addition to the Library page: Auditory monotony: wordless, silence and odd sound "Sound is also a crucial element in the slow cinema of bodies. At the auditory level of a film, the monotony of the sound can also make the audience to feel that time is flowing slow, one of the respects in which is reflected in the wordless of the film. Slow cinema often lacks dialogue and language between characters, in other words, it lacks interactivity and narrative momentum. This kind of silence is not just the absence of words, but the fact that characters fill our imaginations with words they are not saying. [..]" "[..] During this empty time, the audience can feel the silence and begin to speculate on the motives for her thoughts and actions. In slow cinema, the silence and emptiness may lead to meditation on life, or to the emptiness of the human soul, which is the root of human consciousness. [..] In terms of the long, repetitive and monotonous sound may make the audience ...

  An Understanding of Time (Documentary Essay Film 2022) (YouTube) 9'46" (Pickle Pictures Productions) 14 Feb 2025 "A documentary essay film exploring our differing perceptions of time through video/photographs taken in the city of Bonn, Germany."

  All About Her Mother - Chantal Akerman video essay (YouTube) 6'10" (Reclaim The Frame) 22 Feb 2025

  Jeunesse (Les tourments) (YouTube) 1'49" (Digital Ciné) 17 Mars 2025 Un documentaire signé WANG Bing (2024/France/Luxembourg/Pays-bas) 3h46min Les histoires individuelles et collectives se succèdent dans les ateliers textiles de Zhili, plus graves à mesure que passent les saisons. Fu YUN accumule les erreurs et subit les railleries de ses camarades. Xu WANXIANG ne retrouve plus son livret de paie. Son patron refuse de lui verser son salaire. Du haut d’une coursive, un groupe d’ouvriers observe leur patron endetté frapper un fournisseur. Dans un autre atelier, le patron a décampé. Les ouvriers se retrouvent seuls, spoliés du fruit de leur travail. Hu SIWEN raconte les émeutes de 2011, à Zhili : la violence policière, l’enfermement et la peur. Après d’âpres négociations, les ouvriers rentrent chez eux célébrer le Nouvel An. Au cinéma le 2 avril 2025 (distribué par Les Acacias ) La trilogie Jeunesse de WANG Bing (il n'est pas nécessaire d'avoir vu le premier pour voir ...

  Chantal Akerman Interview (New York, 2008) (YouTube) 32'36" (Fergus Daly) 23 Feb 2025 Interview for the film The Art of Time (2009) by Fergus Daly & Katherine Waugh

Watch More Like This Film: Koyaanisqatsi (1982/REGGIO) keywords = Landscape + Montage +Mutism + Music  Chronos (1985/Fricke) Powaqqatsi (1988/Reggio) Anima Mundi (1991/Reggio) Short Baraka (1992/Fricke) Naqoyqatsi  (2002/Reggio) Samsara (2011/Fricke) Visitors (2013/Reggio) Istaqsinaayok (Koyaanisqatsi in reverse) (2016/YouTube) Aquarela (2018/Kossakovsky) Koyaanisqatsi (Rorschach version) (2018/YouTube) Thanks to Blow Up (Arte) for some of the references

  LUMIÈRE, L'AVENTURE CONTINUE | Le 19 mars au cinéma (YouTube) 1'09" (AD Vitam) 18 Fév 2025

After a discussion with Claude Sonnet 3.7, I (or we) came up with these following dichotomy lists contrasting Mainstream Cinema and Contemplative Cinema... In the complex tapestry of contemporary cinematic discourse, mainstream cinema consistently employs a sophisticated architecture of narrative devices that privilege emotional resonance and dramatic efficiency over verisimilitude. These instrumental conveniences—far from being mere technical shortcuts—constitute a distinct visual grammar through which normative cinema mediates our relationship with reality itself. The manipulation of time and chance, the universalization of personal experience, narrative conveniences, and superlative effects collectively represent not simply storytelling techniques, but rather a comprehensive epistemological framework. This framework fundamentally shapes how audiences perceive, process, and integrate fictional experiences within their understanding of the lived world. The following examination interr...

Watch More Like This Film: Cow (2021/ARNOLD)  keywords = Domesticated animals + (Human) + Mutism (* = non-contemplative film) More cow’s viewpoint: Bovines (2011/Gras) More ancient: Old Partner (2008/Lee Chung-Ryul) More like a zoo: Bestiaire (2012/Côté) More goats: Quattro Volte (2010/Frammartino) More sheep: Sweetgrass (2008/Castaing-Taylor/Barbash) More sheep (lotta more): Baa Baa Land (2017/Thomas) More snow: Hiver Nomade (2012/Stürler) More farms: Gunda (2020/Kossakovsky) More jungle: Pepe (2024/Los Santos Arias) More fragmented: Cow (2007/Kiarostami) Short More western: First Cow (2019/Reichardt) *More madness: The Cow (1969/Mehrjui) More fairytale:  Bambi, l'histoire d'une vie dans les bois (2024/Fessler) See also at Unspoken Cinema: CCC recommendations

  Imagine ⎪ Moto, cinéma et Slow life avec ma Guzzi V7 et Red Komodo (YouTube) 9'16" (Aladin) 16 fev 2025 "Imagine" est une balade cinématographique en Moto Guzzi V7 à travers le Bassin d'Arcachon, capturée en RED Komodo et Sony PMW-F3. Entre ports ostréicoles, parties de pétanque et paysages océaniques, ce court-métrage invite à la contemplation et au slow life. Un voyage visuel où la moto devient le fil conducteur d’un moment suspendu, jusqu’au coucher du soleil sur l’océan. Court métrage cinématographique tous les troisièmes dimanches du mois Easy living cinematic video with my Moto Guzzi V7 in the South West of France.  

  Flow (2024/ZILBALODIS/Latvia) A feature length animated film, made in Latvia, without human character, only with animals who don't speak, almost 90 minutes of mutism, with some music, but no plot, no exposition, no closure... wins major awards around the world (Annecy, Golden Globes, Césars, Oscars...), is nominated in more festivals and awards shows, and reaches mainstream fame by attracting a huge audience in theatres.  Contemplative Cinema for all ages, cross-cultural, any language and popular! Congratulations. See also at Unspoken Cinema: Flow ASL