Walden

A political satire and road movie in the spirit of slow cinema? Daniel Zimmermann, visual artist and playwright, has decided on such an unconventional marriage. In thirteen carefully staged panoramic shots (covering 360 degrees), the director ironically reveals the absurdity inherent in the fundamental laws that govern contemporary globalized capitalism. A beautiful old tree becomes an object of market mechanisms in the Swiss film. Felled in an Austrian commercial forest, processed into planks and then transported by a network of various means to the other side of the world - Brazil’s Amazon Forest. How can this be profitable? Why import wood from another continent? What is the environmental cost? These questions hang in the air while the viewer, and even the most seasoned consumer of slow cinema challenges, must open up to this radical convention of film-making. The steady shots, filmed at a constant speed, inexorably abandon the "heroes," captured situations and landscapes, making us forget about the comfortable narration of static shots. A surprising experience awakening us from cinephile lethargy.