Feeling down about the world situation? Take heart in the words of celebrated Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul who has a surprisingly optimistic look at the state of cinema post-coronavirus.
The helmer of “Cemetery of Splendour,” “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” and “Syndromes and a Century” is one of the foremost talents in the wave of what’s dubbed ‘slow cinema’ – movies that revel in stillness and quiet, where character development is through movement and action.
Long shots, slow pans, and dwelling on the more mundane aspects of life are the order of the day and it has become synonymous with certain filmmakers like Bela Tarr, Lav Diaz, and Kelly Reichardt. Weerasethakul recently wrote an essay for FilmKrant (via The Playlist) where he imagines how moviegoing habits will change and suggests slow cinema will be on the rise:
“[This] will breed a group of people who have developed an ability to stay in the present moment longer than others. They can stare at certain things for a long time. They thrive in total awareness. After we have defeated the virus, when the cinema industry has woken up from its stupor, this new group, as moviegoers, wouldn’t want to take the same old cinema journey. They have mastered the art of looking; at the neighbors, at the rooftops, at the computer screens. They have trained through countless video calls with friends, through group dinners captured in one continuous camera angle. They need a cinema that is closer to real life, in real time. They want the cinema of Now which possesses no fillers nor destination.”
We know it’ll be a while before many tentpoles take control of the cinema release slate again, and Weerasethakul sees a scenario where audience can open their horizons to new filmmakers and even has sone playful fun with the idea:
“Then they will be introduced to the films of Bela Tarr, Tsai Ming-Liang, Lucrecia Martel, maybe Apichatpong and Pedro Costa, among others. For a period of time, these obscure filmmakers would become millionaires from a surge of ticket sales. They would acquire new sunglasses and troops of security guards. They would buy mansions and cars and cigarette factories and stop making films. But soon the audience would accuse this slow cinema of being too fast. Protest signs would appear, reading: ‘We demand zero plots, no camera movement, no cuts, no music, nothing.'”
One thing that is clear is that cinema will change once the pandemic is fully over. How though is the million dollar question no-one seems to be able to answer at the moment.
