Slow Burn
Nuri Bilge Ceylan: Slow Burn
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films move at their own, calm pace; one reason why the director is considered a figurehead of what is called 'slow cinema'. Short films from the likes of Béla Tarr and Tsai Ming-liang throw more light on this (sub)genre.
‘Slow cinema’ is a term that’s been around for a while for the work of filmmakers who don’t want to be dictated to by Hollywood-inspired assumptions on pace, plotting and the audience’s allegedly short attention span.
For proponents of the slow-cinema idea, an action should take just as long as it needs; a car approaching from a long distance in a broad landscape doesn’t have to appear in front of the camera in close-up within two seconds (see Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, for example). Carrying out domestic chores can be filmed in real time; cooking a potato takes place according to the laws of physics, not those of cinematography (as in, for example, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman).
Programmer Thijs Havens gives an introduction to the films along with film maker and Ceylan fan Stijn Bouma (De jacht op Meral Ö.), who studied with Béla Tarr. With a handful of short films by some of the more known directors considered to be part of the genre, they shine a light on the stylistic characteristics of slow cinema. What makes this rather 'indefinable' genre so special?
Programme
Koza (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, TR 1995, 20') (DCP)
Ceylan’s debut film, made at the age of 36, stays close to home: the director’s parents play a married couple in their seventies who live apart. A meeting intended to heal old wounds turns out to be painfully inadequate – the breakup is permanent.
Prologús (Béla Tarr, HU 2004, 5') (35mm)
People are standing in line, waiting. What for? Béla Tarr mounts his camera on a moving cart and films the waiting queue in sombre black and white; the images are accompanied by music from Hungarian composer and poet Mihály Vig. Béla Tarr’s contribution to the Visions of Europe project (2004), a collection of 25 short films by filmmakers from 25 Member States of the EU, including Aki Kaurismäki, Fatih Akin, Béla Tarr and Peter Greenaway.
La chambre (Chantal Akerman, 1972, 11') (DCP)
The first film Chantal Akerman shot in New York is a reflection on the legacy of the Structural Film movement of the sixties. As the camera rotates twice 360° around Akerman's apartment, the furniture in the interior, the clutter and the film maker herself - who stares at us from her bed - become the subject of a moving still life.
Szél (Marcell Iványi, HU 1996, 6') (DCP)
Short film by Hungarian filmmaker Iványi Marcell, based on the photograph ‘Three Women’ by Lucien Hervé. At the end of the painstakingly planned and prepared six-minute shot (silent), the film shows what can’t be seen on Hervé's photo. Winner of the Golden Palm for Best Short Film at Cannes 1996.
The Night (Tsai Ming-liang, TW 2021, 19') (DCP)
While Tsai Ming-liang walked the streets of Causeway Bay, he documented the rhythm and enchanting atmosphere of Hong Kong, which had been through a turbulent period. As he did so, an old song ghosted through his mind: "The beautiful night slides by. I hate to see you go. Why must our bliss end so soon? Why do we have to part, when we have only just begun?" Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a huge admirer of Tsai Ming-liang: his Vive l'amour is is one of the films chosen by Ceylan (also screening in Eye).
This is part of
Special screenings
Details
Production year
2025
Length
69 min.
Event language
English
Country
NL
Part of
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Eye Filmmuseum presents the first Dutch exhibition devoted to the work of acclaimed Turkish filmmaker and photographer Nuri Bilge Ceylan. For this occasion, the museum is bringing together his prize-winning films and lesser-known landscape photographs for the very first time. That combination reveals not only Ceylan’s masterly photographic eye and sense of composition, but also the deeply compassionate way he explores universal themes from a Turkish perspective.
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