Slow Machine

Slow Machine (2020) Directed by Paul Felten & Joe DeNardo, Starring Stephanie Hayes, Chloë Sevigny, Scott Shepherd, Eleanor Friedberger. 72 minutes. $12 for a 3-day rental.

Watch: https://projectr.tv/films/slow-machine/6096ccc21a6252000131f61a?theater_id=137

Featuring an intriguingly eclectic cast (including the experimental theater performers Stephanie Hayes and Scott Shepherd, the musician Eleanor Friedberger, and Chloë Sevigny), Slow Machine follows an actress (Hayes) whose intimate relationship with a shadowy NYPD-affiliated operative ends abruptly and disastrously, leading her to hide out in a country house otherwise occupied by a band preparing their new record. But la vie bohemienne proves almost as anxious and tense as life in the city… Deftly lensed in 16mm and unfurling as a digressive, tantalizingly off-kilter mystery, Slow Machine is a fascinating work pitched at the intersection of American independent cinema and the avant-garde theater of Richard Foreman and the Wooster Group.

“Critic’s Pick! A mysterious New York thriller. One of this year’s most mesmerizing movies. Films of such lo-fi aesthetics rarely feel this major.” – Kristen Yoonsoo Kim, The New York Times

“Essential. Brilliant. It’s rare that a new American film feels genuinely alive with possibility from beginning to end. Pulsates with kinetic energy. A beautiful reminder of what it’s like to be properly throttled by an unexpected cinematic jolt.” – Glen Heath Jr., The Film Stage

“Seductively disorienting. Wild and mesmerizing. Kind of like a lo-fi, Brooklyn variant of Inland Empire.”

— Giovanni Marchini Camia, Filmmaker Magazine