Sátántangó (Tarr, 1994): Prince Charles Cinema, 10am
ICA introduction:
This legendary film,
running at 7 hours 12 minutes, deals with the collapse of a
collectivised Soviet-era farm in rural Hungary. There is the scent of
money in the air, and, in chaotic and changeable times, a yearning
for meaning and salvation. At such times it is inevitable that
prophets and Messiahs will be longed and waited for. The question is
whether they will be false prophets, or mere charlatans. In the
chilly, bleak rotten world of Sátántangó, who will follow
who, and why, are left wonderfully uncertain. These are ordinary
human concerns, but it is the vastness of the landscape, the
featureless plains and endless horizons, and a terrifying,
unremitting wind from nowhere, and a rain that falls without end,
that threatens to wash away all human hope. Signature long takes,
often as long as the 10 minutes that a roll of film allows, combined
with astonishing camera choreography offers a sublime cinema
experience. To commit to Sátántangó is to commit to the
unforgettable and life-changing: these are the outer limits of
cinema. The screening is on 35mm.
Chicago Reader
review:
How can I do justice to this grungy seven-hour
black comedy (1994), in many ways my favorite film of the 90s?
Adapted by Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr and Laszlo Krasznahorkai
from the latter's 1985 novel, this is a diabolical piece of sarcasm
about the dreams, machinations, and betrayals of a failed farm
collective, set during a few rainy fall days (two of them rendered
more than once from the perspectives of different characters). The
form of the novel was inspired by the steps of the tango—six
forward, six backward—an idea reflected by the film's overlapping
time structure, 12 sections, and remarkable choreographed long takes
and camera movements. The subject of this brilliantly constructed
narrative is nothing less than the world today, and its 431-minute
running time is necessary not because Tarr has so much to say, but
because he wants to say it right. In Hungarian with
subtitles.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here
(and above) is an extract.
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