a computing pun posted:

Goddamn loving Solaris.

Despite the fact that, generously, only four or five things happen in the entire movie, it's almost three hours long. How can it be so long? Because every single shot and scene is so sluggish that it's almost a parody. Characters stare morosely into the middle distance for extended periods of time. The camera lingers over and over again on incredibly slow naturalistic actions - a character sitting in a chair will slowly steady themselves, breathe in, get up, slowly pick up their jacket and unfold it, slip one arm into it, turn, pull it across, grope for the other armhole, slip the other arm in, straighten their collar, take a step towards the door, pause, check their pockets, turn around and pick up their pocketbook from the chair, place it into their pocket, mope motionlessly for a few seconds and then finally walk out of the room.

Fairly early in the film, there's an almost five-minute-long sequence of a car driving through a series of tunnels and highways. Sometimes the shot is from outside the car, sometimes from the perspective of the driver, sometimes from the back seat; in any case the only action is the car continuing down the road. Sometimes we see the back of the driver's head, sometimes his face; he has the same vaguely troubled expression that he has worn in every single previous scene. At one or two points we see the back of the passenger's head. They don't interact with one another in any way; they certainly don't speak. Nothing the car drives past is in any way relevant to the plot. There is no voiceover. No plot advances. Nothing happens! It's not even effective at building tension because there's no implication that this is anything other than a regular car trip - which is exactly what it is! And once the scene finally finishes, we cut to someone else and we never even loving see either of those characters for the rest of the movie!

The entire movie is like this! One amazingly slow, thoughtful, plodding, tension-building panning shot over seemingly meaningless scenery that slowly pans across to the face of a main character, who turns away from the viewer, saying nothing, and then does nothing for two or three minutes as we watch the back of his head is fine. It's less fine when we see the same trick FIFTY loving TIMES IN A ROW.