Stop Rushing the Frame: Three Slow Films I Finally Got

I used to be a purist about pacing. If a plot didn't move by the twenty-minute mark, I was out. I'd scroll through my phone, check my emails, and eventually turn the TV off, convinced that the director was just pretending to be profound by stretching a scene into an eternity. I called it 'pretentious'. I told my friends that if a story takes three hours to say what could be said in ninety minutes, it isn't art; it's an ego trip. I was wrong. Completely, embarrassingly wrong.

The shift happened slowly. Maybe it was the isolation of the last few years or just the sheer exhaustion of the 'content' era where every cut happens every three seconds to keep our ADHD brains engaged. I started noticing that the films I actually remember five years later aren't the ones that raced to the finish line. They are the ones that forced me to sit in the silence. The ones that made me notice the way light hits a wall or the specific, heavy way a person breathes when they're lying. Slow cinema isn't about the absence of action; it's about the presence of atmosphere.

The First Failure: Tarkovsky and the Art of Waiting

Let's be honest. The first time I tried Stalker in 1979, I fell asleep. I didn't even make it past the first hour. I remember waking up, blinking at the screen, and feeling a strange sense of guilt that I couldn't handle this 'masterpiece'. I felt like I was failing a test. I spent a decade avoiding Andrei Tarkovsky because I associated his work with a specific kind of boredom—the kind that feels like a chore. I thought the long takes were just a stylistic affectation, a way to signal 'high art' to the critics.

I rewatched it last winter. I didn't fight the pace this time. I didn't check my phone. And suddenly, the duration became the point. The journey into the Zone isn't about the destination; it's about the psychological erosion of the characters. When the camera lingers on a patch of damp earth or a rusted piece of metal for three minutes, you stop looking for the plot and start feeling the dread. You start to inhabit the space. I realised that Tarkovsky isn't trying to tell you a story; he's trying to put you in a meditative state where the boundary between the screen and your own thoughts begins to blur.

There is a specific shot of water flowing over submerged objects that I used to find tedious. On the rewatch, it felt like a cleansing. I found myself noticing the textures—the slime, the rust, the way the water ripples. It's a tactile experience. I was about to call this the best film of the seventies, then I remembered the sheer agony of my first attempt. It's a film that demands you surrender. If you try to conquer it, you'll lose. You have to let the film happen to you.

The Beauty of the Mundane

Most modern cinema is terrified of silence. Every gap is filled with a score, a jump cut, or a line of exposition. We've been conditioned to believe that any moment where 'nothing is happening' is a waste of the audience's time. But some of the most visceral moments in cinema happen in the gaps. Think of the way a Malayalam drama like The Great Indian Kitchen handles the repetition of housework. The boredom is the point. The monotony is the weapon. When you see the same chore performed fifty times, it stops being a plot point and starts being a critique of a systemic prison.

This is where my appreciation for the 'slow' movement really clicked. I started seeking out films that breathed. I stopped asking 'what happens next?' and started asking 'what does this moment feel like?'. It's a subtle shift, but it changes everything. I remember discussing this with a colleague who insisted that 'pacing' is a technical requirement of a good script. I argued that pacing is subjective. What is 'too slow' for a teenager is 'perfectly paced' for someone who has spent a decade in the workforce and knows exactly how long a Tuesday afternoon feels when you're staring at a clock.

The Korean Influence

My love for Korean thrillers usually stems from their intensity, but the best ones—like the works of Lee Chang-dong—use slowness to build a pressure cooker. Burning is a masterclass in this. It doesn't rush to the tragedy. It lets the frustration simmer. It lets the protagonist's anger grow in the quiet spaces between conversations. If the film were twenty minutes shorter, the payoff wouldn't hit nearly as hard. The slow build is what makes the eventual explosion feel inevitable rather than scripted.

The Second Failure: The Weight of Silence

Then there's the case of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1081. For those who haven't seen it, it's essentially a three-hour movie about a woman doing housework. Peeling potatoes. Washing dishes. Making the bed. For years, I dismissed it as the ultimate example of 'art-house indulgence'. I remember a friend telling me it was a masterpiece in 2015, and I laughed. I told him it sounded like a training video for a housekeeping service.

I finally watched it properly two years ago. And it was the most stressful experience of my cinematic life. By the second hour, the routine becomes a rhythm. You start to anticipate the movements. And then, when the routine is slightly disrupted—a dropped fork, a misplaced glass—it feels like a catastrophe. The horror isn't in a jump scare; it's in the breakdown of a carefully constructed order. The slowness is the trap. By making you witness the monotony, Chantal Akerman makes the eventual rupture feel like a physical blow.

I realised that my previous hatred of the film was actually a fear of boredom. I was terrified of being bored. But there is a difference between boredom and stillness. Boredom is a lack of interest; stillness is a focused observation. Jeanne Dielman is an exercise in stillness. It forces you to look at the labor that is usually edited out of our lives. It's a political act. By refusing to cut away from the peeling of the potatoes, the film honours the labor.

The Third Failure: The Atmospheric Dread

The third film that took me years to 'get' was The Turin Horse. Béla Tarr is the king of the long take. He doesn't just use long takes; he uses takes that feel like they might never end. The film is a bleak, monochromatic descent into the end of the world, told through the daily lives of a father and daughter in a wind-swept wasteland. The first time I tried it, I felt like I was being punished. I kept waiting for the 'story' to start. I wanted a plot twist. I wanted a reason for the wind.

Rewatching it recently, I realised that the 'story' is the decay. The plot is the gradual loss of light, heat, and hope. The repetition of eating the same potato every day isn't a lack of imagination from the director; it's a depiction of the entropy of existence. The film isn't about a horse or a father; it's about the process of disappearing. I found myself mesmerized by the sound design—the constant, howling wind that never stops. It becomes a character in itself.

It's a difficult film. I wouldn't recommend it for a Friday night after a long work week. But as a piece of visual poetry, it's unmatched. It's a film that asks you to contemplate the void. I used to think that was depressing. Now, I find it strangely comforting. There is something honest about a film that admits that most of life is just waiting for the light to go out.

Why These and Not Others?

I should be clear: I don't think every slow film is good. There are plenty of 'slow' movies that are just poorly edited or lack a coherent vision. I'm not suggesting that you should suffer through every three-hour art film you find. There's a difference between a film that is slow for a purpose and a film that is slow because the director didn't know how to cut it.

When I pick a 'slow' film to recommend, I look for a specific kind of intentionality. I look for films where the duration is a narrative tool. If the slowness is used to build tension, to establish a mood, or to make a political point, it's worth the time. If it's just for the sake of being 'experimental', I'll usually skip it. I've seen enough student films to know when a long take is just a way to hide a lack of substance.

• The slowness must serve the theme (e.g., monotony = oppression).
• The visual composition must justify the length of the shot.
• The film must reward the viewer's patience with an emotional or intellectual payoff.
• It shouldn't feel like the director is daring the audience to leave.

I deliberately left out some of the more famous 'slow' films because they feel too curated. I don't want to give you a list of 'prestige' titles to check off. I want you to find the films that actually challenge your perception of time. For me, that meant going back to the things I hated as a younger, more impatient version of myself.

Learning to Watch Again

Watching these films changed the way I consume everything else. I've become more tolerant of silence in prestige TV. I've started appreciating the slow-burn pacing of Hindi crime films that take their time to establish the geography of a city before the first crime happens. I've realised that the most powerful moments often happen in the silence between the dialogue.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the speed of current streaming—the endless scrolling, the 1.5x playback speed, the constant need for a hook in the first ten seconds—I suggest you try one of these. Turn off your phone. Put it in another room. Sit in the dark. Let the boredom set in. And then, wait for the moment when the boredom turns into something else. That's where the real cinema happens.

I'm curious if anyone else has a 'hatred-to-love' relationship with a particular director. Send me an email at the usual address if you've had a similar experience with a film you finally 'got' years later. I'm always looking for more things to rewatch and potentially regret for a few hours before finally loving them.