Unspoken Cinema

"Faire un film, c'est un véritable tourment", entretien avec Wang Bing par Anne Cheng (YouTube) 1h38'23" (Fondation Hugot du Collège de France) 27 avril 2023 "Dans cet entretien filmé le 5 mai 2022 à la Fondation Hugot du Collège de France à l’initiative de sa directrice, Florence Terrasse Riou, Wang Bing parle librement et intensément de sa conception de l’art, de son rapport au cinéma et à la littérature chinoise, ainsi que de son enfance, notamment à propos de son film « L’homme sans nom ». Il est entouré de sa productrice et proche collaboratrice Kong Lihong, de sa traductrice et interprète Pascale Wei-Guinot, d'Anne Kerlan, directrice de recherche au CNRS et historienne du cinéma chinois, et d’Anne Cheng, titulaire de la Chaire d’histoire intellectuelle de la Chine au Collège de France."

Latest addition to the Library page at Unspoken Cinema: "Society typically dictates the duration and manner in which we attend to objects, people, or events. In other words, the length and type of our attention are regulated by unwritten rules of behavior, forming a part of the social order. When someone focuses on something longer than usual, particularly something socially or aesthetically marginalized, it can challenge established social orders. When attention is prolonged beyond customary social norms, the usual controls over how we observe and perceive can be temporarily suspended, disrupting habitual modes of perception. Slow cinema filmmakers slow down the rhythm of the film and extend shots to encourage this sustained attention. Through slowness, they not only slow the narrative but also challenge social norms and how we typically engage with what we see." Amiri, Sepideh;  Marvā Nabīlī’s The Sealed Soil as Slow Cinema . In Cinema Iranica . Encyclopaedia Iranica Foun...

The old man (Venkatesan) 8th Street (2026/Abdul RAHMAN/India) 1h Film review by Benoit Rouilly for Unspoken Cinema (containing spoilers voluntarily). A clean, well directed piece by Abdul Rahman, who in just one contemplative hour and three cryptic chapters, evokes the devious outlines of five mysterious stories within four opaque characters… Some stories will remain unresolved as others stand open-ended. Everything takes place, practically in real time around 2am, in a single night-bar, named “8th Street”. A lovely place, with marble pedestal tables, wooden chairs and comfy booths. There are rounded corners to the door-frames like on a boat. Coffee bean wooden patterns form a see through ceiling. And a neo-classical sepia painting on the back wall, representing customers at coffee tables, completes the atmosphere. The protagonist enters the bar last, a clean, well lighted place, and penetrates by the front door this “huis-clos” (=a single action takes place in a single space behind c...

“Valley Time” is a peculiar pace of life. Such life is nonchalant, carefree, and at times delightfully indifferent. Adopted by the residents of the village of Kangaroo Valley (shy of 900 souls) strung along the meandering Kangaroo river, nestled amongst rocky sandstone cliffs. This secluded settlement sits a mere two-hour drive south of Sydney, in Australia. Throughout this silent landscape, distances stretch vast until the next neighbour. Community is bound not by proximity, but by a shared introspective state of mind. Such space is unique to the mountainous and isolated terrains. Such pace is unique to the insulated people living far apart yearning for each other.  The documentary The Valley (2026) crafts a multifaceted, deeply evocative portrait of this remote enclave over the course of 3 hours. It shifts from one dairy farmer/painter to a gardener cultivating vegetables to a baker kneading dough to lonesome locals running errands… and so on, and so forth. A seamless human tape...

Hamvas Béla út 11. (YouTube) 55'36" (Kis ZenFilms) 15 Jan 2026 * * * Hamvas Béla út 11. / Hamvas Béla street 11. (2025/Janos KIS/Hungary) a review by Benoit Rouilly Living the weight of an hour, a man takes us through the mundanity of unfettered existence. How much does an hour of human life weigh? Eight moments, eight plans-séquence tell the tale of a daily routine. The slightest gesture is well-rehearsed by life-long habits, not even conscious or calculated. A prosaic choreography of solitude takes place before our eyes. Not a single word is uttered as the unnamed protagonist undertakes repetitive chores. This individual is all of us when nobody’s watching. The muscle memory of his alienation draws lonely circles throughout his apartment. It is as much a chronicle of his life than it is a document of his living space. A modest home on the 13th floor in a Budapest social project from the 60ies. A socialist-era prefab apartment block. The washed-out facade is a vertiginous p...

Dernier article ajouté à la page Bibliothèque d'Unspoken Cinema :  "Ce principe de ségrégation enveloppante par le flou, que Hu Bo généralise dans le film, instaure alors une dynamique centripète : le personnage est pris dans un flou du monde qui englobe également les autres personnages qui sont maintenus dans une apparence semi-fantomatique, même lorsque leurs actions ou paroles font d'eux l'épicentre dynamique et actif de la scène. Ceci a pour effet principal de renforcer la déprise des personnages de Hu Bo sur le monde qui les entoure. La mise en flou du monde extérieur, conjuguée à la longueur persistante des plans, renforce simultanément leur isolement et leur passivité, absents à eux-mêmes, et simultanément aux autres." Olivier Zuchuat, Retrancher le monde. Esthétique du plan-séquence chez Hu Bo , 2023, texte de conférence

  The Enigma of Terrence Malick (YouTube) 19'20" (Auteur Cinema) Nov 1st 2025

Claude Sonnet 4.0: Contemplative cinema editing employs Zen aesthetic principles to create profound temporal experiences through mindful post-production practices. By integrating meaningful intervals, subjective duration, organic rhythm, purposeful separation, and cyclical imperfection, editors craft viewing experiences that mirror meditative awareness and honor the authentic rhythms of consciousness and perception. 間 MA Meaningful gap or interval Ma, literally meaning "gap" or "pause" in Japanese, embodies the principle that emptiness contains infinite potential for meaning. Unlike Western conceptions of void as absence or negation, Ma celebrates negative space and temporal intervals as equally significant to the elements themselves. In traditional Japanese arts, from flower arrangement to architecture, Ma manifests as the deliberate cultivation of emptiness that allows the mind to complete what is left unsaid or unshown. This concept fundamentally challenges the W...

Claude Sonnet 4.0: The intersection of Japanese Zen aesthetics and contemplative cinema reveals profound possibilities for performance that transcend conventional Western acting methodologies. Four essential concepts operate within a complementary theoretical framework: Danshari functions as a foundational methodology for conscious elimination, Iki and Seijaku work as experiential principles governing refined presence, while Yuugen represents the atmospheric mystery that emerges from their synthesis. Together, they create a triadic model progressing from methodological preparation through embodied execution to perceptual reception, challenging performers to locate truth through restraint rather than demonstration and essential simplicity rather than elaborate character construction. 幽玄 YUUGEN The Profound Mystery Yuugen represents the culminating experiential aesthetic that emerges when the methodological foundation of Danshari, the formal intelligence of Iki, and the tranquil presence...

The North (2025/Bart Schrijver/Netherlands) The highlands, right in between the clouds and the mountains. Two friends, and solitude all along the way… There was only one goal: reaching the northernmost cape of Scotland from Glasgow, 600 km on foot through the rough terrain, barren or wet wilderness, during extreme atmospheric conditions. Was it a dare, a bucket list or a dream? Chris (Bart Harder) and Lluis (Carles Pulido), former roommates, decided to set apart 30 days from their busy lives and accomplish this adventure together. We don’t know who they are, where they come from, what they want to become… but we’ll discover it, along with them, on the way to Cape Wrath. After a blind phone conversation from the past (as if recorded on an answering machine) of two students planning a farewell party, like a usual “Tuesday night” of drinking at the pub, the film cleverly flashes forward right away to a decade later. All we know about them through this phone call overture is that they use...

Watch More Like This Film: Koyaanisqatsi (1982/REGGIO) keywords = Landscape + Montage +Mutism + Music  Our Century (1983/Peleshian) 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

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) *More indian: Valu (2008/Kulkarni) See also at Unspoken Cinema: CCC recommendations

 Watch More Like This Film: Gerry (2002/Van Sant) keywords = Desert + Walking + Mutism (*) Non Contemplative Film More like it: Freedom (2000/Bartas) More like it: Honor of the Knights (2006/Serra) More lonely: Le moindre geste (1971/Deligny) More slowed down: Walker series (2012-2024/Tsai) More islandish: The Red Turtle (2016/Dudok De Wit) More desert: Birdsong  (2008/Serra) More forest: Los Muertos (2003/Alonso) More snow: Essential Killing (2010/Skolimowski) More epic: Satantango (1994/Tarr) More Kabuki: Dolls (2002/Kitano) *More Amerindian: Dead Man (1995/Jarmusch) *More verbalisation: Stalker (1979/Tarkovsky) *More vagabond: Sans toit ni loi (1985/Varda) More engines: The Brown Bunny (2002/Gallo) Find more Contemplative films at Unspoken Cinema: CCC Recommendations

  Pillow shots - OZU Yasujiro (YouTube) 9'35" (Unknown)  * * * "The term “pillow shot” was coined in connection with Ozu’s work by the critic Noël Burch in his book To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema: “I call these images pillow-shots, proposing a loose analogy with the ‘pillow-word’ of classical poetry.” In a note, Burch cites Robert H. Brower and Earl Miner thus: “Makurakotoba or pillow-word: a conventional epithet or attribute for a word; it usually occupies a short, five-syllable line and modifies a word, usually the first, in the next line. Some pillow-words are unclear in meaning; those whose meanings are known function rhetorically to raise the tone and to some degree also function as images.” So (by analogy) a pillow shot serves as a visual “nonsense-syllable” or non sequitur that creates a different expectation for the next scene." Martin Schneider, 2013,  Yasujiro Ozu and the enigmatic art of the pillow shot , in Dangerous Min...

(Merci à Axel Munoz pour m'avoir fait découvrir ce cinéaste lithuanien méconnu) Le cinéma contemplatif d’Audrius Stonys (Novembre 2024) BPI Une rétrospective est consacrée à la Bpi du 7 au 18 novembre 2024 au réalisateur lituanien Audrius Stonys qui porte un regard sensible sur ses contemporain·es. La caméra d’Audrius Stonys s’attarde sur le quotidien d’hommes et de femmes, leur rapport à la nature et à l’autre, mais aussi au temps qui passe. Attaché aux détails, le réalisateur filme sous différents angles, en changeant de perspectives, la vie des Lituaniens et Lituaniennes, leur histoire et leurs traditions. La musique, très présente dans son œuvre, les vues du ciel et de la terre, donnent à voir et à entendre la beauté poétique et spirituelle de la vie. Filmer, pour Audrius Stonys, est finalement une manière de conserver la trace d’existences fugaces. Le cinéma d’Audrius Stonys. Les entretiens de Balises (23/12/2024) Vidéo « Comment filmez-vous les corps ? Quelles histoires rac...

  Candlelight Journaling: A Meditative Minimalist Slow Cinema (YouTube) 14'34" (Sean Alan Stone) 9 dec 2024

The core figures of Contemplative Cinema could be summed up by the names: WANG Bing, Roy ANDERSSON, TSAI Ming-liang, Lisandro ALONSO, and Béla TARR, for being consistently, profoundly, and magnificently contemplative... (See Iconic Directors of Contemplative Cinema ) Out of the minimalist centre radiate trustworthy rings of authentic contemplatives, up to the far reach of more conventional edges, maybe more "slow" than "contemplative”, but still minimalist. However, under this uniting banner of “Contemplative Cinema” surges the distinctive rifts between the tectonic plates of more cohesive sub-divisions… because it’s crucial to extract their diversity from their resemblance, their personality from their unity. From this widespread of satellites emerges 5 more stylistically coherent sub-families sorted by affinity tending towards "Art" (Art Gallery and Minimalist Formalism), "Narrative" (but still Minimalist), "Amateur" (Minimalist Hyperreali...

Contemporary Contemplative Cinema Frequently Asked Questions #6 :  What are the main features of Contemplative Cinema ?   We could designate five aesthetic characteristics departing Contemplative Cinema from its Modernist precursors and its minimalist contemporaries (also known under the broader term of « Slow Cinema ») : 1. Exteriority First and foremost, Contemplative Cinema takes a step back and aside, to observe the protagonists and the universe from outside. The non-intrusive camera plants itself in a corner and looks on the whereabouts of people who happen to pass by. The framing of this reality is all-embrassing and captures more than is necessary to provide a solid context to each shot. The spectator scrutinizes the outer shells of mutic faces and gazes over what could have been, ruminates blindingly on what once was, contemplates lengthily on what might happen next… 2. Hyperrealism Real-life is the template. The screen is a mirror. Away from the artifice of pure ficti...