Bela Tarr And Silence

Hungarian director Bela Tarr is a bit of an enigma. Having seen most of his mature film work, he seems to have come to the place where his surname can be grafted on to a thing as an adjective.

I.e.- just as film mysteries with an odd twist have become known as Hitchcockian, sci fi tales with a twist ending Serlingesque (after the creator of the tv show The Twilight Zone), and inhuman dramas with long deliberate pauses Kubrickian, so too is it right to call deliberately paced films that focus on the internal human predicament Tarrian.

Here is the opening to Werckmeister Harmonies, and note the way the young man is anally trying to orchestrate the others:


Here is a later scene from the film, wherein a mob stops momentarily upon a memorable discovery:


And here is Satantango's opening:


In all instances, watch how Tarr focuses on a thing or two. His long takes dwarf even those of Theo Angelopoulos.

Here is an interview with the man:

Bela Tarr's 'Woody Allen' Moment

2007's The Man From London, by Bela Tarr, is the least of his 4 'mature' films I've seen, and for two major reasons.

1) the plot is not just confusing- as many critics claim of films they do not understand- just simplistic and not believable in its own diegetic timeline.

2) Tarr's film steals major visual and thematic elements from his earlier films- Satantango, Damnation, and Werckmeister Harmonies- and in far lesser ways, that it reminds me of Woody Allen's films of the last 17 years, as they mimic his 1977-92 Golden Age.

Along with the disappointment of N.B. Ceylan's last film, Three Monkeys, this pains me to say, but Tarr may be on a long downward slide from here. He just seems to have nothing left to say and no original ways to say it.

I just hope that when it's finally released on DVD, Theo Angelopoulos's The Dust Of Time does not also fail, like Tarr and Ceylan did.

Here's the trailer, and note it's nothing like the film, a clip of which follows below:


MAN FROM LONDON: Movie Trailer - The best home videos are here

Theo Angelopoulos

Just because I felt like something deeper today.

A scene from Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow. Can't wait till Part 2 hits American DVD.

Tearjerkers: Good Stuff

The label tearjerker has become a pejorative, because it often means sentimental to the extreme.

But there are films that are tearjerkers that are great art. In mind are film's like Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar and Theo Angelopoulos's Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow. These films are truly masterpieces of misery and sadness.

But, even Hollywood can occasionally get things right. About a decade ago. My Dog Skip was released, and it is a superb film; I would argue a great one, if but for the writing. It puts me in mind of October Sky and A River Runs Through It, films also based upon memoirs, like My Dog Skip.

Here is the film's end, and even non-animal lovers, or cat lovers (like me) can appreciate the scene below, for it is simple, not simplistic; realistic, not truthful; and never makes one want to retch. It also is a family film- another term that has become a pejorative.



I say, watch it, for it's even better than Stand By Me, long considered te king of non-Disney family films.

Theo Angelopoulos Rocks!

Watched another great film by this master of cinema. The Suspended Step Of the Stork is an oddly dissed film in Theo's canon, but it's not only great, but innovative in its use of constructing narrative and characterization with almost no closeups and little dialogue.

Here is a clip:



Here the trailer:



And, spoilers alert, here is the film's end:



I'll be reviewing this shortly. Go see it, if you can get the Region 2 DVD.

Ulysses' Gaze

Since I've posted on Antonioni and Tarr, recently, I might as well go whole hog on that other great master of the long take, Theo Angelopoulos. This snippet is from the above titled film- not his best, but still a damned good film that I reviewed here.

This is a collage of scenes: