How To Enjoy Slow Cinema

The main thing is to try to forget what it’s like to have fun

Image created in Canva. People illustrations by Storyset.

At some point in all of our lives, we will be forced to reckon with slow cinema. To derive pleasure from such a thing spontaneously is, of course, impossible. Yet enjoyment can be learned if one keeps in mind a few simple principles.

The encounter will likely happen on an evening where you had invited friends over to watch the latest Marvel movie. The evening will start innocently enough. Your friends will arrive carrying snacks. They’ll be accompanied by a new guy wearing sunglasses indoors and smoking gauloises. You won’t think anything of it until he inevitably pulls out a stack of Criterion Collection discs from his distressed leather satchel and spreads them across the coffee table. As a haze of blue smoke fills the room, and you work out how to ask this stranger politely to put out the effing cigarette, you may find yourself attempting to get the Marvel movie going sooner than planned.

Don’t.

The first step to enjoying slow cinema is to abandon all thought of doing something else. It’s like mindfulness. You observe the thought enter your mindscape: “I would definitely prefer to do anything other than watch this right now.” And then you must in despair watch that thought leave. Do not act. The idea of visiting the DMV…