quisitely elegant way without explaining what they can tell, instead creating
relations between characters, composing small sequences of action and develop-
ing architectural space out of the singular photos in a way that seems to invite
the audience into the scene to reflect on what it was like to be there during her
grandmother’s time.
Both Bergman’s and Breien’s films feature photographs that have been filmed
by a film camera. These photographs are, however, not just the object of a film
camera, but also part of a filmic universe where they are just one component
among many (cinematography, editing, genre, etc.). Koningsberg’s definition of
slide-motion film seems to imply a fundamental relation between two instances
or dimensions, the narrator and the photographs, the first being the active di-
mension, the voice speaking and the camera looking, the other dimension being
the things looked at, the photographs as relics to be examined or documents to
be shown as illustrations or evidence. There are no doubts that bothKarins
AnsikteandSolvornare based on photographs. They, however, also create a
temporally organized space, where the photographs are not only objects for the
gaze but also components in the creation of a film universe. InSolvorn’s case
this is done in a way quite similar toAño uña, a film that arguably does not fit
Koningsberg’s definition of the slide-motion film.
Being a fiction film,Año Uñahas an unusual production history. It is based
on analogue photographs of everyday life, family and friends, taken by Jonás
Cuarón over a period of one year. He then collated the,shots before reas-
sembling,to,of them into a fictional narrative.The negatives were
scanned, digitally edited and printed tomm film. Combined with dialogue,
voice-over, music and other sound well-known film elements,Año Uña’s film
style seems quite ordinary for a narrative fiction film, except that it visually pre-
sents a series of stills. Moreover, even if each individual frame appears as a still
image, they are organized in sequences and present their static objects as inte-
grated into sequences of cohesive actions.
Its production history resembles bothKarins AnsikteandSolvorn. They
all have a collection of photographs as their starting points. Moreover, they all
focus on one or on a few individuals and their closest, social relations. All three
may even tell a story about their main characters. Looking at the photographs
from his mother’s life, Bergman creates a story about the pictures of Karin from
her youth, her marriage to his father, her having children, before she seems“to
disappear into the family pictures”, as he puts it (in one of the film’s inter-titles).
Solvorn, on the other hand, poses a series of questions to the pictures (and to
why they were taken in the first place), but it also composes a story by the way
the pictures are arranged. However, compared toAño Uña, both of these stor-
ies are fairly vague, due to the scarcity of images, the lack of–or never com-
pleted–narrative sequences, and the lack of information that is provided for the
The Temporalities of the Narrative Slide Motion Film 87