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"Satantango," by Bela Tarr. Fans of Tarr will not be

Posted by tinear on October 14, 2008 at 20:47:32:
disappointed in this 7-hour epic which features the long held shots, the static camera, the endless walks, and the gloomy, doom-like sets.
A group of desperately poor villagers expecting a pay out from a sale become apprehensive when they learn a con-man they thought dead is not and is on the way to the village. Meanwhile, Irimias, the almost Messianic criminal, has stopped in at the police station where he seems to have become an informer.
After he arrives at the village, he convinces them that life there is unsustainable and that he and he alone can lead them to a communal life where all will thrive.
At this point, an unspeakably dramatic event occurs which is the most upsetting, disturbing film event I have ever witnessed. From here to the film's terrifying conclusion political and religious iconography, as well as a narrator who may or may not be leading us along, frame a story which promises deliverance to the characters but descends slowly to what can only be damnation.
I can only compare this film's epic nature and primal power, its vision of humanity and the human condition, to one other film, Fassbinder's majestic, "Berlin Alexanderplatz."
Without relying on traditional film "language," tracking shots, fades, jump cuts--- in other words, while eliminating most of the tools of the director-- Tarr also eschews most dialogue, having but one lengthy spoken scene and that is a soliloquy, astonishing in its quiet power-- Tarr has fashioned one of film's masterpieces.
Few other filmmakers have attempted a Human Comedy of this scale. Actually, the impact of this film, its sheer complexity and depth of thought, are more like the classic Proust epic or the complete, sixty-novel creation of Balzac.
This is genius, my friends, and we are privileged to be alive to see it.