While television and web series run for weeks together (divided into 30 to 40 minute-long episodes), films are usually no longer than two hours. However, Swedish filmmakers Erika Magnusson and Daniel Andersson challenged this practice in their film by making it 857 hours long. Imagine sitting through such a long film!
What’s it about
An experimental film, “Logistics” lacks any conventional structure. It follows the life cycle of a pedometer, a tiny plastic electronic device used by people to count their steps and monitor their pulse rate. The film follows the pedometer’s journey in reverse chronological order. It begins at a store in Stockholm, where the pedometer is sold and then traces it back to a factory in China’s Bao’an distict, where it was manufactured.
What makes it special?
The film is shot in real time over 37 days and 37 nights, nonstop. This helps the viewers understand the actual time and distance taken by the product to reach from China to Sweden.
To get a first-hand experience, the filmmakers travelled with the product as it made its way aboard a large container ship going from Sweden to China, a freight train to the port of Gothenburg, then a truck to the port of Shenzhen and a factory in Bao’an.
It offers a peek into the realities of online shopping and global logistics. The film was exhibited in Stockholm in 2012.
Since it would be difficult to sit through such a long film, “Logistics” has been broken down into short, two-minute clips – one for each day of the journey on its website. You can watch it on logisticsartproject.com.
Did you know?
Longest films in the world
- “Ambiance”: Another Swedish film “Ambiance”, which was scheduled to release in 2020, is 720 hours long, which is equivalent to a whopping 30 days. The film’s trailer, which came out in April 2016, was seven hours and twenty minutes long!
- “Hamlet”: Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet” released in 1996 lasts 242 minutes.
- “Cleopatra”: Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1963 film “Cleopatra” is 248 minutes long.
Longest films in India
- “Doon School Quintet” is a documentary series created by American visual anthropologist. It has a runtime of more than eight hours (494 minutes)
- “Czechmate”, a documentary by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur runs for 448 minutes (roughly seven and a half hours.)
- “LOC Kargil”: The 2003 film “LOC Kargil”, based on the Kargil War and directed by J.P. Dutta is four hours and fifteen minutes long.
Picture Credit : Google
