Aesthetics of absortion in contemporary cinema

Abstract

The article addresses what we will refer to as absorptive cinema. It comprises films of slow duration where the characters are depicted in absorptive situations, i.e., engaged in small daily actions or in situations of self-abandonment, often apprehended
by the camera in its nondramatic unfolding in real time. Absorptive cinema’s most fruitful moment occured between the mid-1990s and the first half of the 2010s, when it constituted one the most recurring stylistic devices in contemporary cinema. This concept of absorption originates from the famous study by Michael Fried on the relationship
between painting and the beholder in the 18th century. The conceptual and historical problematizations implied by this use of a theoretical model borrowed from another field
of studies will be taken into account. The analysis of Wang Bing’s Father and sons (Fu yu zi, 2014) will provide a guideline for the investigation. In the end, we will raise the question
of a possible overcoming of the aesthetics of absorption in the context of Brazilian contemporary cinema, in which a trend towards the frontality of representation seems to be replacing the primacy of absorption.