Slow beauty: Refocusing Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid through a slow cinema lens
Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid is often read as a representation of South African queer realities and political progressiveness both during and since the dissolution of apartheid. Consequently, Hermanus’s contribution to the aesthetic of slowness in Skoonheid has gone largely unnoticed in the broader c...
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2024
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| author | Wanyonyi, Emmanuel |
| author_facet | Wanyonyi, Emmanuel |
| author_sort | Wanyonyi, Emmanuel |
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| description | Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid is often read as a representation of South African queer realities and political progressiveness both during and since the
dissolution of apartheid. Consequently, Hermanus’s contribution to the aesthetic of slowness in Skoonheid has gone largely unnoticed in the broader
context of slow cinema. In this article, I examine how Hermanus, through the slow cinema conventions, urges the viewer to contemplate issues of
crucial importance to human behaviour, thereby putting Skoonheid’s meditative qualities on display. Drawing on Ira Jaffe’s concept of expressive
minimalism, Emre Çağlayan’s poetics of slow cinema, and Thomas Elsaesser’s observations on the virtues and demands of slow cinema, I analyse
the narrative and aesthetic strategies deployed in Skoonheid within the purview of slow cinema and beyond a representation of queer sexuality.
This analysis reveals that Skoonheid represents a mode of narrative-formal expressiveness distinct from, yet in dialogue with, slow cinema in its
emphasis on contemplation. Principally, Hermanus finds a way to testify to some of the most urgent concerns in contemporary society through the
film’s contemplative approach, which draws the viewer’s attention to the mystery and ambiguity of human experience. Skoonheid’s contemplative
approach is informed by the film’s processes and experiences of alienation, incommunicability, and existentialism. |
| format | Article |
| id | oai:repository.daystar.ac.ke:123456789-4881.2 |
| institution | Daystar University |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE |
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| spelling | oai:repository.daystar.ac.ke:123456789-4881.22024-08-12T09:51:09Z Slow beauty: Refocusing Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid through a slow cinema lens Wanyonyi, Emmanuel Skoonheid slow cinema contemplation alienation narrative slow image. Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid is often read as a representation of South African queer realities and political progressiveness both during and since the dissolution of apartheid. Consequently, Hermanus’s contribution to the aesthetic of slowness in Skoonheid has gone largely unnoticed in the broader context of slow cinema. In this article, I examine how Hermanus, through the slow cinema conventions, urges the viewer to contemplate issues of crucial importance to human behaviour, thereby putting Skoonheid’s meditative qualities on display. Drawing on Ira Jaffe’s concept of expressive minimalism, Emre Çağlayan’s poetics of slow cinema, and Thomas Elsaesser’s observations on the virtues and demands of slow cinema, I analyse the narrative and aesthetic strategies deployed in Skoonheid within the purview of slow cinema and beyond a representation of queer sexuality. This analysis reveals that Skoonheid represents a mode of narrative-formal expressiveness distinct from, yet in dialogue with, slow cinema in its emphasis on contemplation. Principally, Hermanus finds a way to testify to some of the most urgent concerns in contemporary society through the film’s contemplative approach, which draws the viewer’s attention to the mystery and ambiguity of human experience. Skoonheid’s contemplative approach is informed by the film’s processes and experiences of alienation, incommunicability, and existentialism. School of the Arts, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa 2024-08-12T09:51:07Z 2024-07-29T10:17:31Z 2024-08-12T09:51:07Z 2023-04-24 Article 0041-476X E-SSN: 2309-9070 https://repository.daystar.ac.ke/handle/123456789/4881.2 en TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 60(1) • 2023 application/pdf TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE |
| spellingShingle | Skoonheid slow cinema contemplation alienation narrative slow image. Wanyonyi, Emmanuel Slow beauty: Refocusing Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid through a slow cinema lens |
| title | Slow beauty: Refocusing Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid through a slow cinema lens |
| title_full | Slow beauty: Refocusing Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid through a slow cinema lens |
| title_fullStr | Slow beauty: Refocusing Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid through a slow cinema lens |
| title_full_unstemmed | Slow beauty: Refocusing Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid through a slow cinema lens |
| title_short | Slow beauty: Refocusing Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid through a slow cinema lens |
| title_sort | slow beauty: refocusing oliver hermanus’s skoonheid through a slow cinema lens |
| topic | Skoonheid slow cinema contemplation alienation narrative slow image. |
| url | https://repository.daystar.ac.ke/handle/123456789/4881.2 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT wanyonyiemmanuel slowbeautyrefocusingoliverhermanussskoonheidthroughaslowcinemalens |
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