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The Wandering Eye: Slow Cinema, Spectatorship, and Surrealism in Memoria and 2001: A Space Odyssey

Alyssa Ho 

 

Jessica (Tilda Swinton) and Old Hernan (Elkin Diaz) share an extended moment together in Memoria

 

Walking into a theater midway through a movie, one is struck by the sight of a captivated audience fixed on the glowing screen before it. Without the context of cinema, it would be a strange sight to witness so many people in this trance-like state. This was the case during the early 1900s when cinema was beginning to popularize — a medium whose mode of spectatorship fascinated surrealists of the time. According to Adrian Martin, these surrealists “worshipped the peculiarly hypnotic, erotic ritual of film viewing” (193), likening it to a waking dream — a conscious unconscious lifestyle. 

However, the art of slow cinema presents a unique challenge to this traditional theory of spectatorship. With its sparse mise-en-scène and minimal camerawork, slow films encourage the audience’s mind to drift from the screen and wander toward other distractions in the theater, such as food, mobile devices, or even the exit sign. This observation led me to Roland Barthes’ description of film viewing as having “two bodies … a narcissistic body which gazes, lost, into the engulfing mirror, and a perverse body, ready to fetishize … the texture of the sound, the hall, the darkness” (349). Barthes’ characterization of film spectatorship suggests an alternate understanding of surrealism not as a mode of existence between two binaries — dream and reality — but as the co-existence of two binaries that can be traversed back and forth. Rather than being subdued into an empty trance, the viewing experience is a push-pull movement oscillating the audience’s attention between an immersed and active state. 

With this new definition of surrealism, I argue that slow films heighten active spectatorship to such an extreme that they open new avenues for thematic interpretation. In an interview with Open Culture, David Lynch, a notable surrealist filmmaker, describes this relationship as a feedback loop, where the cinema becomes an event space in which a film influences the audience, who, in turn, influences the film (Mills). In this sense, the surreal engagement between film and viewer is crucial for a deeper analysis of subtle themes. Using Memoria (Apichatpong, 2021) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968) as case studies, I will examine how slow aesthetics, measured pacing, self-reflexivity, and the wide shot, all serve as catalysts for active viewership. This experience fluctuates between observer and participator, spectator and creator, and self and environment. I will then demonstrate how this surrealist perspective brings forth new thematic interpretations of these films.

Before delving into the analysis, it is important to establish the narrative context of each film. Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Memoria follows Jessica (Tilda Swinton), a woman awakened at night by a strange and repetitive sonic boom that haunts her daily life. In the unfamiliar urban landscape of Bogotá, Colombia, she seeks to recreate the noise with a sound engineer named Hernan (Juan Pablo Urrego). Her journey leads her to encounter an older man named Hernan, whom I will refer to as Old Hernan (Elkin Diaz). Old Hernan shares with Jessica the source and meaning of the sound, revealing it to be a memory embedded in objects and the surrounding environment — an echo from a spaceship’s departure from Earth during an ambiguous time period. 

Leaning more heavily into the science fiction genre, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey crafts a myth of human evolution guided by a mysterious extraterrestrial force embodied by a black monolith. The film spans four distinct chapters: the dawn of man as apes learn to use bones as weapons; the advancement of space travel as Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) investigates the appearance of the black monolith on the moon; the rise in power of artificial intelligence (AI) as pilot Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) defeats the murderous HAL 9000; and, finally, the stage of transcendence as Dave reaches the black monolith and is reborn a star child.

 

Observer and Participator

Beginning with the very definition of “slow” as an adjective to describe long durations of time, both Memoria and 2001: A Space Odyssey take their drawn-out pacing to an extreme. In Memoria, a scene unfolds in which Jessica wanders into a jungle and meets Old Hernan for the first time as he scales fish by the banks of a river. The camera is positioned in a static wide shot as the two characters sit together. This single take lasts about four minutes before the film cuts to a close-up of Old Hernan’s hands scaling the fish. After a minute, we cut back to the previous frame, the camera returning to the same spot as we left it for another eight minutes. The minimal action and prolonged duration of the 13-minute scene test the audience’s ability to remain attentive amidst a lack of visual stimulation. In this sense, it takes a conscious effort to fight against the urge to disengage from the film. 

Similarly, 2001: A Space Odyssey creates a feeling of monotony and endurance amongst viewers. Rather than long takes, Kubrick uses long sequences to slowly progress through the narrative, notably in the first chapter of the film titled “The Dawn of Man.” Here, viewers observe a troop of apes in a desert landscape for twelve minutes as its members participate in mundane activities like eating and scaring off other apes. With the dry-brown color palette and the constant sound of ape screams, the film produces a sense of irritating repetition that prompts audiences to question when the sequence will finish. Even after the inciting incident occurs — in the form of a black monolith appearing before the apes and seemingly teaching them how to use bones as weapons — the sequence persists; we return to the apes, now an evolved species, eating and fighting off the other apes as the same dirt landscape and incoherent growling continue for another eight minutes. This tiring redundancy tests audiences’ patience and commitment to the film. 

Through the use of the long take and long sequence, both Apichatpong and Kubrick radically distend time that, according to Tiago de Luca, “becomes eminently meaningless, at least in the way it refuses to be instrumentalized by representational content. This is why, moreover, some critics may experience slow films as frustrating” (30). From a surrealist perspective, I aim to explore this restless viewing experience as an active struggle to remain focused, in which the viewer must put forth an intentional effort to continue watching the film. According to Karl Schoonover, this state of spectatorship demonstrates a way of seeing that is no longer simply a function of the observer but a choice to participate in “seeing as a form of labor” (154). When a film forces audiences to push themselves into an active role of viewership, they sacrifice their own enjoyment, defying the convention of movies as a source of entertainment and pleasure and rendering them as a form of work. 

This shift from passive observation to active participation reveals new insights into these films. While going through our own tiring efforts as a viewer, each of these films direct our attention toward the role of labor in their narratives. Returning to the jungle scene in Memoria, it is no coincidence that the only other shot the film cuts to throughout the sequence is a close-up of Old Hernan scaling the fish — someone performing a chore. The dialogue is also important here as Old Hernan says, “The rocks, the trees, the concrete, they absorb everything… Experiences are harmful. They unleash a violent flurry in my memory. So I work the land. I scale the fish.” Old Hernan toils away in a rural landscape because if he does not, he will be pulled into the past by objects that carry too much history. It is only through consistent and isolating labor that Old Hernan can live in the present and see the future. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the opening sequence of apes ends at the 20-minute mark when one ape throws a bone into the sky. The camera follows its airborne trajectory before abruptly cutting to a graphic match of a bone-shaped ship floating across the void of space; the cut visually conveys the direct transformation of the bone, Man’s first tool, into a sci-fi ship, Man’s super-advanced invention. Through this sharp cut, the 20-minute build-up mirrors the arduous journey of human evolution. 

Just as spectators must labor to move forward in these films, Memoria and 2001: A Space Odyssey are about personal and collective development as a product of time and hard work; their slow pacing allows each film to position their audience into a surreal state of active participation that simulates labor. This emphasis on slowness, in turn, reveals a theme shared by both films: struggle and sacrifice for human progress — hard work and its payoff. 

 

Spectator and Creator

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí are often hailed as pioneers who brought the surrealist movement to the cinema with the release of Un chien andalou in 1929. Although surreal in its themes of the unconscious and irrational, the story of its creation is equally surreal. During the writing process, Buñuel and Dalí played a game in which they took turns proposing an image that the other would attempt to question or build upon. The design of this anti-rational approach was to maximize randomness and evoke dreamlike images with little reason or continuity between them. According to Adam Lowenstein, what specifically made this automatic art method different from others of the surrealist movement was how “their film sets out to be ‘as mysterious to the two collaborators as to the spectator.’ In this sense, Un chien andalou takes shape as a game of images with at least three players and a duration that encompasses both production and reception” (Lowenstein 47). By presenting its images in the same fashion Buñuel and Dalí playfully conceived them, Un chien andalou situates audiences in an active state of spectatorship that invites them to take their turn in the game. They become aware of and closer to the filmmaking process, shrinking the gap between spectator and creator. 

This historical example of surrealist filmmaking establishes self-reflexivity as a technique for active spectatorship. I will apply this surreal perspective to slow cinema, examining how it accentuates detailed processes in a self-referential manner and the new meanings it can engender. Let’s begin with 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film was made in 1968 without CGI (computer-generated imagery) yet displayed imaginings of space travel and futuristic technology with such detail that it won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. One standout shot depicts a round space shuttle landing on a lunar base. At a low angle, we see the bottom of the spaceship; with no background, save for the black void of space, the ship is the centerpiece of focus. Delicately, it expands, deploying its four legs for landing in a visually stunning moment; the shuttle’s movement is stretched out in slow motion, emphasizing the meticulous mechanisms and intricate means by which the legs function. Accompanied by “The Blue Danube,” a classical waltz, the scene invokes a celebratory feeling of its own technical achievements. As Moira Weigel suggests, it is “at this pace, [that] story slips away,” and the film becomes self-reflexive, because “while [the film] is fictional, it is above all a record of a real feat.” Although the shuttle scene is inconsequential to the grand narrative, it brings attention to the film as a documentative tool that revels in its own stellar practical effects, allowing the audience to become conscious of the filmmaking process. As the viewers question just how Kubrick managed to capture something so fantastical without CGI, the film compels one to think about special effects as a technological innovation. Reflexive moments like these in 2001: A Space Odyssey prompt a re-evaluation of one of its major themes; as bones, spaceships, and AI are considered human inventions that push the evolution of the species, Kubrick seems to argue that so, too, are film, cameras, projectors, special effects, and screens. 

 

A lunar spacecraft spectacularly lands on Clavius Base in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

 

Self-reflexive moments in Memoria also invite viewers into the filmmaking process. In one scene, Jessica collaborates with Hernan, a sound designer, to recreate the mysterious sound she has been hearing. As they sit together in front of an audio workstation, the film positions the camera directly behind Jessica and Hernan so we can see the same screens they look at. In a three-minute long take, we watch Hernan meticulously click through audio files, splice clips, playback sounds, and adjust volumes. As Jessica listens and tries to describe the sound that only she and the audience have heard, the extended duration of the shot allows Hernan to make mistakes and try different combinations of sounds in a trial-and-error approach. In this scene, viewers are not only trying to piece together their own recognition of the sound but are also exposed to how the sound was first created for the film in its development stage. According to Glyn Davis, this aware state is of the “spectator’s psychological ‘stepping outside,’ a mental journey away from the film on screen – to a removed vantage from which the film can be contemplated as a textual object” (101). The role of objects as vessels for memories is a central theme of Memoria; though other parts of the film reference rocks, trees, beds, and bottles as such objects, this scene references itself. Only in this distanced spectatorship can the audience realize film as an object that preserves memory —  one that holds stories, places, people, and eras to be rewatched and re-experienced. Just as Un chien andalou included the audience as a third member of the writing process, Memoria and 2001: A Space Odyssey draw viewers into their respective filmmaking processes, prompting reflection on the nature of cinema itself as a storytelling and innovative tool. 

 

Self and Environment

If one were to lay out all the frames of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Memoria, one would notice a predominant use of wide shots capturing vast landscapes: deserts and jungles, sparse spaceships and buildings, the black void of space and the bustling crowds of a city. In these wide shots, there is an intentional distance between the audience and the main characters and a stillness to the camerawork that encourages the eye to wander across the onscreen environments. For instance, a shot in Memoria depicts a dimly lit, deserted plaza at night. A street in the background bustles with cars and pedestrians while Jessica enters the frame from the right, barely distinguishable from the other figures. Shrouded in shadow, her face remains unseen as she walks carefully through the scene to avoid a dog that seems to be trailing after her. Still a silhouette, she creeps to the right edge of the frame, dissolving into a tree’s shadow. This shot from Memoria is comparable to one in 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which Dave leaves his pod, drifting in space toward the ship’s satellite. The still frame consists of the spaceship and satellite on the left side and the small pod at the bottom right; the background is black, and Dave appears like a minuscule red dot in the middle of the frame. In both these shots from Memoria and 2001: A Space Odyssey, the minimal mise-en-scène and placement of characters as secondary to the background allows viewers to devote their attention to the expansive yet empty surrounding environment. 

 

Jessica’s minuscule figure is hopelessly swallowed up into her surroundings in Memoria

 

These settings evoke a profound sense of loneliness and insignificance, alluding to the films as atmospheric experiences, ones that Robert Spadoni argues are created from neither “the film nor its viewers. [Atmosphere] comes into being when those entities come together” (58). As a collaboration between film and spectator, these static wide shots depict environments as open to exploration for audiences to interact with the space and project their own emotions onto the landscape. According to Lowenstein, this represents Roger Caillois’ theory of mimicry in organisms as not “an instinct for self-preservation but for self-abandonment, an often dangerous attraction toward ‘depersonalization through assimilation into space’” (54). Just as the films allure spectators, it’s no mistake that within these wide shots, the characters also seem to merge with the environment; Jessica disappears into the tree’s shadow, and Dave shrinks from the camera and deeper into space. By situating the viewer into this active mode of spectatorship, these films present the idea of surrendering oneself to become a part of a larger entity as a clear theme. In the end, Jessica connects with memories originating across an infinite timeline, and Dave is reborn as a higher being who transcends infinite space. Both Jessica and Dave lose themselves to a higher dimension just as, on a much smaller scale, the audience’s gaze is absorbed into the environments displayed onscreen. 

Slow cinema emerges as a filmmaking mode with a distinct style, consisting of long takes and sequences, self-reflexive scenes of detailed processes, and static wide shots. Through a surrealist lens, these characteristics reveal their unique impact on spectatorship, fostering a dynamic dialogue between observer and participator, spectator and creator, and self and environment. In the case of slow cinema, this active viewing experience can offer the viewer a better understanding of a film’s themes. As exemplified by Memoria and 2001: A Space Odyssey, the formal elements of slow cinema work to cinematically convey further insights regarding time and labor’s role in evolution and progress, the cinematic medium as a vessel for memory and technological advancement, and the symbolic assimilation of oneself into a larger cosmic and environmental entity. Through its deliberate pacing and introspective approach, slow cinema offers an active state of spectatorship that serves as a catalyst for deeper reflection and contemplation of thematic interpretations.  

 

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. “Leaving the Movie Theater.” The Rustle of Language, trans Richard Howard, 1986, pp. 345-349

Davis, Glyn. “6. stills and stillness in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s cinema.” Slow Cinema, 11 Dec. 2015, pp. 99–111, https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748696031-012. 

De Luca, Tiago. “Slow time, visible cinema: Duration, experience, and spectatorship.” Cinema Journal, vol. 56, no. 1, 2016, pp. 23–42, https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2016.0052. 

Lowenstein, Adam. Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, & the Age of Digital Media. Columbia University Press, 2015. 

Martin, Adrian. “The Artificial Night: Surrealism and Cinema.” Surrealism Revolution by Night, National Gallery of Australia, 1993, pp. 190–195. 

Mills, Ted. “David Lynch Muses about the Magic of Cinema & Meditation in a New Abstract Short Film.” Open Culture, Aug. 2018, www.openculture.com/2018/08/david-lynch-muses-magic-cinema-meditation-new-abstract-short-film.html. 

Schoonover, Karl. “10. wastrels of time: Slow cinema’s labouring body, the political spectator and the Queer.” Slow Cinema, 11 Dec. 2015, pp. 153–168, https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748696031-016. 

Spadoni, Robert. “What is film atmosphere?” Quarterly Review of Film and Video, vol. 37, no. 1, 22 July 2019, pp. 48–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2019.1606558. 

Weigel, Moira. “Slow Wars: Is This How Cinema Transcends Itself?” N+1, 29 Feb. 2024, www.nplusonemag.com/issue-25/essays/slow-wars/.

 

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