Uważne spojrzenie – nowy paradygmat poznawczy dla europejskiego kina slow

Putting the increasingly popular concept of mindfulness in a wider context of slow movement, the article focuses on its representation in the film culture. Developed in the late 20th century, slow cinema is a cross-cultural trend in art cinema film-making that is not only appreciated but also initiated by the viewers themselves, film critics, selectors, and cinema enthusiasts. According to the author, the artificial construct of slow cinema emerged from the need to experience the so-called secular epiphany, a phenomenon that as of yet hasn’t been thoroughly studied. To capture this post-secular potential of slow cinema, she refers to the concept of mindfulness (or awareness) analysed here both with respect to Jon Kabat-Zinn’s functional definition of mindfulness and the original Buddhist concept of sati (as updated in terms of its epistemological and soteriological sense). The hypothetical usefulness of the concept of mindfulness is verified in the process of interpreting three films included among the classics of slow cinema: Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, Birdsong (2008) by Albert Serra, and Outside Satan (2011) by Bruno Dumont.