A symphony in black and white, a masterpiece of visual storytelling. Béla Tarr’s seven-and-a-half-hour magnum opus follows the inhabitants of a Hungarian village after the fall of communism. Drink, lots of drink and the rumor that the dead have risen take possession of the imagination. It seems almost impossible: sitting in the cinema chair for a working day, watching one and the same film. Yet that is what the Hungarian director Béla Tarr (1955, Pécs) demands of his audience, and that this is not a problem, as the lyrical reactions of film viewers and criticism at the release of Sátántangó in 1994 and later re-screenings proved. Tarr announced in 2011 that The Turin Horse would be his last feature film. Tarr kept his word – new feature films have ceased to appear.
Sátántangó is structured like a tango through the past and present. In twelve ‘movements’, shot in long takes in enchanting black and white, Tarr takes you to a grimy village in Hungary. The employees of the former collective farm are distraught after the fall of communism; certainties are gone, what remains is the village pub, gossip and the terrifying suspicion that the dead will rise again.
With Damnation (1988) and Werckmeister harmóniák (2000), Sátántangó belongs to a trilogy that was created in collaboration with the Hungarian novelist and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai. The films are a commentary on the fragility of human civilization; unexpected, threatening developments appear to bring out the animal in man.
The shedule will be as followed:
- Part one 10:30-12:57
- Part two 13:15-15:25
- Part three 15:45-18:47
