CalmYour average Hollywood blockbuster is jam packed full of heightened emotions, epic explosions and over-compensating acting to the point where, sometimes, going to the cinema can feel like exhausting sensory overload.
But fear ear-splitting action no more, because the ‘dullest film ever made’ is offering an un-ewe-sual but perfect anti-dote to contemporary cinematic excellence and story-telling prowess.
Don’t believe me? Just watch the trailer below and see for yourself:
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Baa Baa Land – a joyous dig at the explosion of colour and sound that was Oscar-winning La La Land – follows the story of some sheep. In a field. Eating grass. For eight hours.
Brought to you by Calm, the same folk that designed a meditation app, the film offers ‘the chance at last… To pause… To breathe… To calm our racing minds and fretful souls… To sit and stare… At sheep.’
CalmBaa Baa Land is billed as a ‘contemplative epic’ and while it might sound bizarre it’s already winning accolades, as the nineteenth longest film ever made, as well as – potentially – the dullest.
The prospective cult classic was filmed in Essex with a “charming farmer” called James Coe, according to the director, Alex Freedman.
CalmFreedman told iNews:
He was very hospitable and helpful and his sheep were very relaxed and chilled out – the perfect cast. We started shortly after dawn and it was all over by the end of the same day.
They say you shouldn’t work with animals, but they couldn’t have been more accommodating or less trouble.
CalmHe added:
We’re billing it as ‘the ultimate insomnia cure’. Viewers can put this on on their phone or their tablet and wind down and drift off to sleep. By ‘dullest’ we mean most relaxing, uneventful, most lacking in plot or action, car chases or explosions.
CalmThe film comes from a long tradition of slow cinema, Freedman notes, adding: “Andy Warhol’s 1964 film Empire [an eight-hour shot of the Empire State Building] was ridiculed and mocked. But it’s now revered as an avant-garde and slow cinema classic.”
CalmFYI, for those less inclined towards an eight-hour one-movie-marathon, there’s a five-minute version for the “time-poor”.
Freedman is so confident in his slow cinema project that he says there’s every possibility for a sequel.
CalmSo watch this space…
If you can stay awake.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.