'Slow Cinema' has become a recognised genre over the last decade, and it is a happy antidote to the crash-bang-wallop dominance of Hollywood and the multiplex reliance on short attention spans. Slow Cinema has given us several great directors (Bela Tarr, Lav Diaz, Tsai Ming-Liang and others).
However, it has also given us some "Marmite" directors, and for me, Albert Serra is one. This film, 'Honour of the Knights', is something of a rehearsal for 'The Story of My Death', which follows Casanova and his manservant on a desultory wander from nowhere to nowhere.
In 'Honour of the Knights' we follow Don Quixote and Sancho Panza through some summery Catalan countryside, with uneventful silences punctuated by the knight's querulous, dementing obsessions.
I love many examples of Slow Cinema, but Serra leaves me baffled and inclined to think that his work is superficial and bland.