"The longer you stay on the shot, greater the pressure" - is something we're familiar with when it comes to directors like Tarkovsky, he doesn't shy away from staying with his camera on a scene for as long as necessary. With this film, I did felt quite intimidating with the first shot of the film of an older man's face staring into the camera, lying down and giving off the impression (to me) that he had woken up. The shot lasts for about 8 minutes.
We then follow a monk throughout the rest of the film, walking in ultra-slow-motion, the longest one was probably how walked down stairs during 14 minutes, lots of people passing by him, some watching him, some ignoring him and just moving on. At first I was into this, actually finding the shots really beautiful and soothing to rest my eyes upon, but I then ended up falling asleep, not only once, but twice, having to go back to the spot where I think I fell asleep.
The most disappointing thing to me however is that this is categorized as a drama, the monk is actually played by an actor and so is the old man that we sometimes see just watching either the monk or nothing at all. I've seen documentaries before with monks walking like this, the most famous one from Godfrey Reggio's QATSI trilogy, a trilogy moving in a very rapid pace to fast music. This film however is more like scenes from Roy Andersson's films, the camera locked on a spot and then something taking place in front of it, only that this film got no plot, it got no music and in the end I didn't really learn anything at all from it, compared to the QATSI films. It could've been a great "opposite-film" to those films with its slow pace and a message to the people to slow down, take it easy, but in the end I just ended up being a bit bored and disappointed by the whole experience.
I did however give the film 5 stars out of 10, because some of the shots are just fantastic with it's natural lighting, especially the staircase scene with the rim light around the monk and the sparkling points on the railings.
We then follow a monk throughout the rest of the film, walking in ultra-slow-motion, the longest one was probably how walked down stairs during 14 minutes, lots of people passing by him, some watching him, some ignoring him and just moving on. At first I was into this, actually finding the shots really beautiful and soothing to rest my eyes upon, but I then ended up falling asleep, not only once, but twice, having to go back to the spot where I think I fell asleep.
The most disappointing thing to me however is that this is categorized as a drama, the monk is actually played by an actor and so is the old man that we sometimes see just watching either the monk or nothing at all. I've seen documentaries before with monks walking like this, the most famous one from Godfrey Reggio's QATSI trilogy, a trilogy moving in a very rapid pace to fast music. This film however is more like scenes from Roy Andersson's films, the camera locked on a spot and then something taking place in front of it, only that this film got no plot, it got no music and in the end I didn't really learn anything at all from it, compared to the QATSI films. It could've been a great "opposite-film" to those films with its slow pace and a message to the people to slow down, take it easy, but in the end I just ended up being a bit bored and disappointed by the whole experience.
I did however give the film 5 stars out of 10, because some of the shots are just fantastic with it's natural lighting, especially the staircase scene with the rim light around the monk and the sparkling points on the railings.