Reflective Encounters

“As with almost anything else in life, growing old comes with its own set of boorish clichés. If you believe them then – as soon as you’re ready to get your free bus pass - you’ll also receive a volume button for your TV (so you can turn it to the setting ‘Louder than a bomb hitting a cymbal factory’), a list of conversation topics which includes ‘The relative youth of Policemen nowadays’ and a special pill that makes it impossible to figure out how to work any new technology.

What makes Slow so fun is that it gleefully skewers one of these clichés – namely the one that says elderly people drive at a pace that would make a tortoise go “Speed up a bit!” – in a way that both refutes it yet also admits that it may contain the odd hint of truth.

While directors Giovanni Boscolo and Daniele Nozzi make sure that silliness is the order of the day here – and do a fine job of keeping their comedic conceit going throughout – this also has an underlying sense of pathos as the film serves as a reminder not to forget about the older generation. Because, if you do, you’ll be finding yourself in that traffic jam for a lot longer than you’d like…”

— Laurence Boyce