Unspoken Cinema

Latest addition to the Library page at Unspoken Cinema: "In popular and scholarly discourse on twenty-first century international film, slow cinema has emerged as an area of vibrant discussion. Among cinephiles and film critics, slow cinema grew in prominence as a topic in the early 2000s, and it has since become a source of rigorous debate in academic circles as well. With slow cinema now a central discussion in film culture, numerous authors have attempted to specifically define the parameters of this mode. Tiago de Luca describes slow cinema as a group of films “characterized by measured pace, minimalist mise-en-scène, opaque and laconic narratives, and an adherence to the long take as a self-reflexive stylistic device”. De Luca’s conceptualization of slow cinema is one of many, but it sufficiently captures the scope of the stylistic features typically attributed to slow cinema. To provide my own brief definition as a guide for this project, I will understand and interpret slo...

Latest addition the Library page at Unspoken Cinema:  "As the title of this chapter suggests, three Japanese concepts will be examined against the background of a relatively recent phenomenon that has come to dominate contemporary culture: “globalization.” The term often denotes the growing uniformization of culture through the worldwide standardization of economic, political, and aesthetic conditions. This standardization also extends to the production of space. Yet any discussion of space in relation to globalization must take into account an additional dimension. A “globalized world” is created not only through the homogenization of building materials, aesthetic forms, functional modes, and the like, but also through the increasingly prevalent “virtualization” of human environments enabled by computer technologies. This virtualization does not initially refer to the creation of computer-generated “virtual reality.”" Thorsten Botz-Bornstein ; Ma, Basho, Aida: Three Japanes...

Latest addition to the Library page at Unspoken Cinema: "To examine the many connections between early film and painting enables us to explore the ways that cinema often times embraced the principles of detached contemplation. These affinities were foregrounded in the museum exhibition Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film, 1880-1910, in which curator Nancy Mathews identified a wide variety of visual rhymes involving specific films and specific art works, suggesting that some early films were conceived as paintings that move (thus the title of her exhibition -"Moving Pictures")." Charles Musser; A Cinema of Contemplation, A Cinema of Discernment: Spectatorship, lntertextuality and Attractions in the 1890s (2006)

Latest addition to the Library page at Unspoken Cinema: "The concept of "slowness" which has gained significance in response to the rapid pace of industrialized and urbanized modern society, can be seen as a reaction to the challenges posed by consumer culture. When examined in conjunction with movements that embrace slowness as a way of life, such as "Slow Food," "Slow City," and "Slow Media," it becomes evident that this concept has developed a rich cultural and social ideological framework. The notion of slowness, which has garnered increasing attention in literature since the late 1980s, particularly through the works of Petrini and Berthelsen, has also found its way into the realm of cinema. This cinematic trend, often referred to as "slow cinema," is characterized by deliberate cinematographic choices. It can be traced back to the cinematic narratives of the 1960s and continues to influence contemporary filmmaking. Since the...

  if these holes could talk, they'd sing... - the hole by tsai ming-liang (YouTube) 1' (ilestsixheures) 1er avril 2020 

Latest addition to the Library page at Unspoken Cinema: "This article advances mutism as a creative mode and conceptual tool to treat silence in cinema. Whereas mutism can be a productive concept for the study of auditory and visual absence in a broader theoretical framework, my focus here is on the silence of film characters. Drawing on correspondences between the critical and the clinical in Gilles Deleuze’s writing, I argue that adopting mutism as a tool of film-philosophy permits us to supersede traditional film analysis and examine silence not as an interpretive condition at the level of the plot but as a critical-clinical mode of experimentation related to the symptomatology of life. After presenting a brief clinical history of “elective” and “selective” mutism, I then draw on the suppressed understanding of “elective mutism”. I demonstrate that “elective mutism”, which might appear to be a negative and powerless disorder in its clinical presentation, transforms itself into...

  JEANNE DIELMAN (1975): A Hiper-realidade do Cotidiano (YouTube) 34'46" (Arthur Tuoto) 13 Feb 2026 "Jeanne Dielman acompanha três dias da rotina rigorosa de uma viúva em Bruxelas, cuja vida é sustentada por um duplo trabalho doméstico e sexual. Aos poucos, pequenas falhas nesse cotidiano começam a corroer essa ordem e revelam como o tempo, o espaço e os objetos passam a agir contra ela. A aula destaca como Chantal Akerman transforma tarefas banais em matéria dramática, hipervisibiliza o trabalho invisível das mulheres e subverte o naturalismo clássico ao dilatar planos e construir uma “hiper-realidade” formal."

Laïla Pakalnina – Entretien #1 – Cadrer le mouvement de la vie - Les entretiens Balises (YouTube) 13'04" (Bibliothèque Publique d'Information) 16 février 2026 "Dans un entretien filmé accordé à Balises, Laïla Pakalnina (Lettonie/Latvia) explique que, selon elle, les plans fixes sont animés par des mouvements propres à la composition dans le cadre, au rythme donné par le montage et à la vie elle-même, captée par la caméra.   Ses choix esthétiques répondent ainsi à une nécessité d’être à l’écoute et à l'affût de ce qui advient dans un environnement donné, près d’une cascade ( Chute d’eau , 2016), sous un pont ( Le Premier pont , 2020), dans une usine de fabrication de cuillères en plastique ( La Cuillère , 2019) ou à un arrêt de bus ( Terminus , 2024)."  Cet entretien a été enregistré au Centre Pompidou le 10 janvier 2026, en partenariat avec l'université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

  "a celebration of the art and philosophy of slow cinema" https://www.facebook.com/mindanaoslow/

"EIGHT BRIDGES is, by turns, meditative and contemplative. By asking us to remember and enjoy the fundamental pleasure of cinema, within the continual barrage of commercial advertising and of films/shows made and marketed for easy consumption, plus continual Capitalist overloading of our perceptual faculties, exacerbated by the expanding (and visually contracting) dominance of cellphones, and the concerning political tension between Europe and Trump’s “MAGA” America, Benning offers an extended moment, if not of therapy, at least of quiet thoughtfulness and awareness—and cinematic pleasure." Scott Macdonald "JAMES BENNING: Before I made a shot, I’d already done a lot of advance planning. I’d decided to get to each bridge at a particular time of the day. And I paced my trip to each bridge in order to have ideal weather conditions for what I wanted to record on the day I’d arrive. For example, I wanted a different kind of sky at each place where I filmed. In 2001, for SOGOB...

Recent addition to the Bibliography page  at Unspoken Cinema: "The traditional Japanese concept of ma refers to a pause or a space, "the moment of no action, the stillness and silence that is filled with more powerful energy than the moments of action" on the classic Noh stage. It also refers to the pauses taken in between notes by a shakuhachi flute player or the spaces between stones in a Zen garden which reveal unexpected vistas and perspectives. The eighteen thought-provoking essays in this book present the work of talented writers and artists with vast experience in the fields of Japanese art, religion, music and philosophy. They show us how the experience of ma in the traditional Zen arts and practices can be used to create a greater awareness of our surroundings to vastly improve our lives in many other areas." Ken Rogers, John Einarsen & al. ; Ma: The Japanese Secret to Contemplation and Calm , 2025 Highlights include: " The Unspoken Space We Share ...

Le sommaire de 2025 sur Unspoken Cinema est complet, disponible ici . Ou sur la page Index . The 2025 table of content on Unspoken Cinema is completed, available here . Or on the Index page.

  Rencontre avec le réalisateur Wang Bing // Trilogie "Jeunesse" (20/02/2026) (YouTube) 50'03" (Boutique Potemkine) 26 Février 2026

We have reached (and passed) the bar of 500 films listed on the Recommended Contemplative Cinema page ! Since 1960, the first ever Contemplative film recorded in the database: Naked Island , to Laguna , the latest Sharunas Bartas film of 2025, film #500 on the list. In 65 years, this accounts for an average of 7.7 films per year. But these days, it's more like 25 per year. Since last year, the list can be browsed at my Letterboxd .