The Virtues of Boredom
Films as diverse as Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), Michelangelo
Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte (2010)
and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life
(2011) can be linked through their denial of immediate visual or narrative
gratification, indeed by their apparent determination to bore their viewer.
They can be off-putting and antagonistic towards their audience, but their insistence
on boredom is arguably intrinsic to their epic scopes.
