Satantango (1994, Bela Tarr)

Yeah, my ass did kind of hurt for a couple days afterwards.

But seriously folks, I did really enjoy my viewing of Bela Tarr’s infamously long epic. It was different than I expected in a few ways. First off, I really expected sort of a Hungarian Hou Hisao-hsien or Tsai Ming-liang film, with very long and very static shots. The long shots part is correct, but the film is anything but static. It is in fact very cinematic, with tons fluid beautiful camera movement, and an incredibly expressive soundtrack. You may be following two people walking down the street for five minutes wherein they say absolutely nothing, but it is gorgeous and captivating. Tarr really does a great job allowing you to fall into this semi-hypnotic mood with these long shots, but never making them feel boring or dead as is the problem with a lot of modern Asian art cinema.
I also expected it to be very static plot-wise, however it is crushingly emotional and extremely engaging. It even has actual intrigue and thriller-esque sections. The acting is superb throughout.

There were two directors I was constantly reminded of throughout the viewing. One is Tarkovsky, despite the fact that while both directors establish the same kind of eerie calm, their journeys are quite different. The other is Denmark’s Roy Andersson, whose Songs From The Second Floor was clearly heavily influenced by Tarr.

So despite the ass-numbing and heavy time commitment I am extremely happy to have made the effort for a film that I can’t imaging having half the impact in another environment. There was one viewing-related bummer though. Northwest Film Forum chose to show the film with three intermissions (ten minutes, 45 minutes, ten minutes.) The first ten minute intermission was placed at a HORRIBLE spot (right after the doctor knocks over his bookcase for those interested) which really broke up the mood. The middle one was utterly perfect, I don’t see how you could possibly not take a break there, and the third one was good too falling between chapters. I’m curious how other screenings break up the film.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 7th, 2006 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.