Take your Time: On the Pleasures of Cinematic Slowness (Jakob Boer)

 Jakob Boer here:

Benoit kindly invited me to contribute a post to his wonderful blog (that I’ve been following for many years now). I would like to take this opportunity to report on the findings of a research project that I conducted on slow cinema spectatorship.

On this blog, in film criticism, and in academic writing, slow cinema has been subject to lively and sometimes heated debates. Yet, some aspects of this contemporary cinematic phenomenon were left largely unexamined, which was the impetus for me to dedicate three years of my life to studying the topic. Scholars had done major film analytic work on the topic previously, and cultural critics had done the work of positioning slow cinema in a wider slow movement. Yet, I sensed that the unique type of aesthetic experience slow cinema affords, remained relatively unexplored. To me, the vocabulary used to describe it lacked richness and precision. I thought that the easy oppositions used in film theory–between fast/slow, attention/distraction, active/passive–were insufficient and were not helping us in properly understanding the appeal of these films.

In my PhD-dissertation, Sensing Slowness: A Phenomenology of Slow Cinema Spectatorship, I therefore set out to investigate the actual experiences of viewers watching this type of film. I asked myself what kinds of emotional enjoyment and intellectual fulfillment slow cinema offers its audiences and what personal significance and meaning it holds for them in their everyday lives. In other words, I wondered why viewers watch these seemingly boring films in which not much happens. To be able to formulate a possible answer to this question, I set myself the task of first closely exploring how they do this, or what it feels like to watch slow cinema. Some people (myself included) laud these films for their meditative or contemplative quality, whereas others loathe them for being tedious and boring. What do we mean to say when we use such qualifiers? By closely examining the meaningful and rewarding experiences of those members of the audience that take pleasure in watching these films, I aimed to unravel the mysteries of their engagement: what makes for a sustained engagement that is achieved by some, and what causes others to disengage and give up on these films? 

In my dissertation, I outline the typical effects slow cinema has on viewers, pertaining to modes of attention; feelings, emotions, and bodily responses; and types of mental engagement (keep in mind though that these aspects are intertwined in complex ways). Moreover, my study also uncovered a few of the (sometimes unconscious) strategies that viewers use when they are confronted with the slow pace, extended duration, and stylistic minimalism of slow cinema. 

Here are some of the key findings:

• Slow cinema offers not only intellectual reward, but also pleasurable, relaxing bodily experiences, mindful attention, and peaceful feelings of presence. Far from being purely laborious or boring, viewers describe moments of peace and calm. This means that slow cinema does not so much require great attentional effort and/or that it does not necessarily pose an intellectual challenge–these, I think, are common but unfortunate misconceptions about slow cinema that unwantedly and needlessly scare viewers off. While it is true that slow cinema for some viewers and under some circumstances might pose said challenges, the spectators I interviewed told me a different story. For them, contemplative cinema provides pleasure not despite but because of the slowness.
  
  
• The slowness and stillness of these films is not necessarily challenging or disrupting, but can instead also be engrossing, captivating, and immersive. Viewers reported on being immersed — not because something exciting happened on screen, but because something resonant happened within. This is telling about how slow films work on viewers in unique ways, different from typical mainstream genre films like action films, thrillers, or rom coms (but not necessarily in opposition to them). Audiences need not be continuously perceptually stimulated and emotionally triggered to have meaningful experiences. Films can be appealing in various ways and slow cinema has its own refined stylistic and narrative tone of voice with which it engages viewers. This way, slow cinema can be understood more positively rather than defining it by what it is not.
  
  
• Spectators tend to use two distinct viewing strategies of what I call passivity and activity. In the first, viewers let themselves be carried by the film’s visual and auditory movements and rhythms and experience a kind of mental and physical release. They speak of “letting go,” and becoming more attentively or mindfully “attuned” to the film, while also allowing themselves to drift off and be carried away by their own meandering musings. In the second, viewers deliberately pay attention and bring their attention back to the film when they notice they have drifted off. When negative emotions arise, they modulate them to motivate themselves. They become mentally active by filling in the blanks and by freely contemplating the themes and stories the film provides. While seemingly nothing happens, viewers are most certainly not doing nothing. Together, these two modes of activity and passivity reveal that watching slow cinema is not simply passive or active — it’s both. Viewers go back and forth between them. Watching slow cinema also involves a delicate balancing of attention between the film (both at the level of its form and content) and themselves (their own responses to the film). 

Slow cinema has the potential to provide various gratifications for viewers: it can be relaxing, promote a mindful state, and can be personally meaningful. What’s not to love? I readily admit that slow cinema will never be to everyone’s liking and that there might be various reasons why not everyone takes equal pleasure in watching (which were beyond the scope of my research). Nonetheless, based on what I’ve learned from the participants of this study (and the countless hours I spent in the movie theatre myself), I suggest that watching slow cinema involves some level of skill or viewing competency and, if I’m correct, this means it can be learned–to some extent at least. 

Here are some guidelines for watching slow films, if you want to give them a chance:

• Take your time. Some of the beneficial effects reported by the cohort of viewers that I interviewed are fostered by conducive viewing conditions. If they are not met, your enjoyment of these films might be limited or hindered. Go to the cinema, put your phone on silent mode or leave it at home, and give yourself the time to devote your precious attention to the film and nothing else. Preferably, watch the film uninterrupted and in a single viewing, as it likely takes a while to adjust and attune to or synchronize with the pacing of the film. Watching these films requires you to slow down. There are no cheat cuts, fast forwarding is useless. Some cinematic things take the time they take, don’t worry! (I’m citing and freely adapting the American poet Mary Oliver here). On a side note, I also advise you to watch these films at a time that feels right for you. Slow cinema is not a magical audiovisual substance that miraculously takes all your temporal troubles away. It is important to realise that you will likely take any stress or anxiety that you may have with you when you watch a slow film. Clear your agenda and designate slow time: make slow cinema a special occasion, an event, a personal and sacred ritual of slowness.
  
  
• Adjust your expectations. If you are used to watching mainstream genre films, you have likely built expectations: about how and at what pace a story unfolds and the dramatic arch comes to a resolution, what interesting characters are and how they evolve and learn; which actions and events are shown and how; which morals are promoted (good/bad), and what relevant themes and topics are. You might have become used to films that cater to and reward you on all these counts. With slow cinema, expect the unexpected. These films tend to invite active participation from you (like any film does), but leave you ample opportunity to do so on your own terms, as they grant you space and time to look, feel, and think.
  
  
• Let it go! Trust yourself and the film, be kind towards yourself and don’t judge your own response, and adopt a curious and open attitude. It’s okay if you sometimes get distracted, bored, confused, or slightly restless and uneasy, as long as you allow yourself to feel these feelings just the same. All aesthetic appreciation involves an element of love (there, I said it).
  
  
• Indulge in simple pleasures. If you wish to start enjoying slow cinema, it might help to recalibrate your senses. The pleasures of slow cinema can be manifold (and admittedly the broad header ‘slow cinema’ is a bit of a misnomer that does not do justice to the variety of films, with their diverging aesthetic strategies and varying effects, that are subsumed under this umbrella term). Part of the appeal to viewers seems to be the enjoyment of simple and subtle sensory (audiovisual) shifts. They require multi-sensory receptivity and fine-tuned attention. The depth and complex layering of a natural or urban landscape filmed in a deep focus, wide-angle shot; the majestic, slowly moving camera that frames a situation, event, or action continuously and in all its glorious real-time duration; the intricate expressive changes barely noticeable on the face of a character who is framed in close-up and in sustained duration; the minute metamorphoses of the hues of light of an evening sky or the nearly-silent fluttering of the wind in the leaves of a tree–these are all typical audiovisual and thematic tropes that slow cinema invites you to dwell with and focus on. What normally remains in the background of the film and in the viewer’s awareness in everyday life, the backdrop against which life and the stories we tell takes place, now takes the centre of the filmic stage and the viewer’s attention. Contemplative cinema provides a screen that allows you to experience filmic things ‘you can see only when you slow down’ (to creatively cite Korean Buddhist monk Haemin Sunim). In the ideal scenario, slow cinema provokes mediated, mindful looking. 

Happy (slow) viewing!

Read also at Unspoken Cinema:

• Sensing Slowness (Jakob Boer) PhD
• Slow Cinematic Atmosphere (Boer & de Roo)
• 2023 Contemplative Cinema Canon (Jakob Boer) Top10