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HURRY SLOWLY: A Low Stakes Slice Of Life For A Fast-Paced World

HURRY SLOWLY: A Low Stakes Slice Of Life For A Fast-Paced World

Hurry Slowly: A Low Stakes Slice of Life for a Fast-Paced World

The English title of Skynd Deg Sakte (Hurry Slowly), can best be described as an oxymoron or, closer still, a paradox. However, the interesting thing about paradoxes is the very fact that they often ring with some core truth. The best way I can describe it, within the context of this story, has to do with its logistical runtime. This is a diminutive feature from Norway clocking in at only about 1 hour and 7 minutes and yet director Anders Emblem elongates this time frame methodically.

The opening shot sets the mood with a long, unbroken take of a biker entering the foreground and cutting across an isolated byway into unseen open space. These wide, expansive shots are interspersed liberally throughout this naturalistic drama. In fact, there is a near preoccupation with roads snaking through the countryside. We see it, again and again, from varying perspectives.

If we call this a slice of life story, it’s necessary to consider the actual slices as long strips unto themselves. They are given time and space to develop, though there isn’t much time, to begin with. The images function in a generally symmetrical, two-dimensional plane of existence with everything feeling very measured in both camera work and editing. It would mean very little if it did not dictate how we are supposed to understand these characters and their world.

Her Brother’s Keeper

Fiona (Amalie Ibsen Jensen) is the legal guardian of her younger brother which, in itself, is a heady responsibility since he has autism. Tom (David Jakobsen) needs constant looking after whether it’s help getting dressed, preparing meals, or continually receiving prompting to improve his learning regimen. She takes care of him very dutifully and with obvious sibling affection. There are no parents or grandparents present so she and her brother live alone on the northern coast of Norway.

Hurry Slowly: A Low Stakes Slice of Life for a Fast-Paced World
source: Anders Emblem

As is, there is little to no dramatic situation. At least, not in the conventional sense, though stories and personal meanings dance in and around the edges of the story. Because Fiona has no verbalizing family, we must decipher her desires through her eyes and the physical manifestations in her life.

One can only gather her true aspirations lie in the world of music and yet she feels beholden to the care and upkeep of her brother. She loves him dearly but there is also this tension about leaving him at a full-time care facility. She frets over the outcomes. Is this really the best decision for both of them? But all these extrapolations take a bit of inference, poking and prodding at the material to try and tease out further meaning.

Low Stakes and Tranquility

The film’s ambitions are slight and yet within the scope it chooses, there is an undeniable warmth of character. So, while there’s nothing extraordinary or particular eye-catching here, it never sets out to be such things. Sometimes simple, unadulterated goodness is enough.

Hurry Slowly: A Low Stakes Slice of Life for a Fast-Paced World
source: Anders Emblem

The longest take I can ever recall comes during one walkway scene in Michelangelo Antonioni‘s L’Avventura (1960). Still, Hurry Slowly more than earns its name. Because even a moment like the one in the earlier film, which could easily feel excruciating, is still tied into a broader mystery. We want to know where the female tourist has disappeared to. It would keep us going if Antonioni did not play such a sick joke on his audience. With Hurry Slowly, there is similar pacing but none of the indelible parlor tricks.

Thus, it runs the risk of feeling sleepy and tedious. Thankfully, it never is allowed to become turgid because of the very nature of its economy. So this slowness of pace in form and content acts more like an oasis than the doldrums. The balance between the two seems important as the same could probably not be said of a longer film. Instead, it plays like a long, short film if we can pen a new paradoxical term.

The low stakes are infused with this underlying peaceful tranquility. The story, while not hard and fast all the way through, has the shapes and edges of a life not quite fully realized and expounded upon. There’s ample content for more exposition even as the camera cuts away. But we’re rather glad that it leaves it as is, with the contours allowing our minds to fill in the dots.

Music as a Gateway to the Soul…Sort Of

One of the promising notes of the movie comes out of the songs Fiona plays on her guitar. They are actually quite noticeable when put up against a canvas that’s so hushed. First of all, they’re in English but there’s also the candor of a singer-songwriter with real feeling in between the lines. I only wish we would have gotten more of this. But again, that’s precisely the issue. Fiona’s other necessary responsibilities, to her brother and to work, take away from her allotted space for creativity.

Hurry Slowly: A Low Stakes Slice of Life for a Fast-Paced World
source: Anders Emblem

However, I couldn’t help thinking as we sat in silence together on other occasions, her headphones plugged into the record player, what a wonderful opportunity these would have been to build a deeper rapport. Not only would we feel closer to her in actually hearing the music she’s informed by, but it might give us some greater insight into who she is. Music can do that and it’s true of when we hear her sing, so why would it not be the same with what she listens to? Musical rights aside, it does feel like a wasted opportunity.

Despite doing everything in my power to know these characters on a more meaningful level, there are hardly enough morsels to arrive at a deeper understanding. By the end, we must resign ourselves to this fact. This is a peaceful film, which lingers as a placid impression more than a deeply resonate portrait of life.

What are some films that utilized long takes and stationary camera set-ups effectively? What makes a resonate slice of life film or is it only a euphemism for a story that is lacking meaningful conflict and stakes?

Hurry Slowly will be featured at Slamdance Film Festival 2019 in Park City, Utah which runs from January 25th-31st. 

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