over, inAño Uña, as in most slide-motion films, the sound of the voice-over
contributes to the production of a continuously unfolding of the action by its
more or less continuously sounding voice.
However, the voice-over also worksagainstthis impression of an unfolding
presence, not by presenting qualities parallel to thestaticquality of the single
frame, but, nevertheless, by producing an impression ofpastness. The nature
and degree of this impression ofpastnessvaries considerably for the different
slide-motion films discussed here. Before we look into these variations, it may
be helpful to introduce another temporal figure relevant here, namely finality.
The Sense of an Ending
Analytically, it may be useful to distinguish between the filmic and the narrative
in this respect. Any narrative film is a final product, and this finality is twofold:
First, the film is final. During the screening of the film, the future of the events
that unfolding, in the words of Peter Brunette and David Wills, is,“always a
future that is foreseen, that we know will come to an end within the space of
the screening”. And, as they add:“its finality imposes a kind of past upon it”.
Secondly, the narrative is also final. Just like the film, a narrative discourse
makes the events unfold into a future that is already in the past. All narratives,
even oral narratives and stories in the making, are told and listened to in accor-
dance with an“anticipation of retrospection”, to borrow a phrase from literary
theorist Peter Brooks ().This is the general, temporal logic of the plot.
However, the narrative of a final product, such as a film, is told retrospectively
in a stronger sense than stories in the making: we don’t just expect a point to the
story that we may grasp along the way or at least make sense of when the tell-
ing comes to an end. The narrative finality of the film narrative implies that
even when the narrated events are fictional, we experience the story as a recon-
struction of something that has already happened (in the narrative universe).
Hence, thenarrativefinality of any narratively organized filmic discourse also
imposes a kind of past upon it.
The smooth editing of images of moving objects in mainstream entertainment
film reduces the attention paid toward the experience of both filmic and narra-
tive finality and pastness. The stills of the narrative slide-motion film seem to
rupture the impression of the presence of the unfolding of events. The voice-
over appears to strengthen the impression of both filmic and narrative finality
and pastness. However, the voice-over’s production of pastness varies for the
narrative slide-motion films discussed here.
The Temporalities of the Narrative Slide Motion Film 95