ABSTRACT
The organising principle of speed has long raised questions regarding time and space as key sites of interest where social, cultural, and economic forces resonate. More recently these discussions concerning speed have been used to address issues related to globalisation, particularly as they concern the systemic acceleration of lived life under capital. Parallel with this acceleration, we find a reciprocal slowing down in the aesthetic dimension of art cinema, which has become increasingly invested in formal deceleration, defined by a serial use of long takes, stunted plot progression, and static cameras. Pedro Costa’s Ossos is emblematic of this trend, offering us an alternative temporal flow that facilitates disengagement with our accustomed experience of the world granting access to spaces that diverge from the mainstream. In this, Ossos offers a glimpse into what heterotopia might mean in a global landscape by underscoring the disparity between local places and global logics of capitalist space. Emphasising the day-to-day struggles of its residents, Ossos frames heterotopia with an eye toward what Foucault has called the “epoch of juxtaposition,” where disparate groups of people are nestled close together but live lives increasingly defined by separation and isolation.
