Sátántangó

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Abraham M Nov 21, 2017 A once in a lifetime experience which every self-respecting cinephile should take. From this picture starts my scrupulous research of the work of the great director Bel Tarr. It is a monumental movie, like a depiction of life in miniature with absorbing character study. Just watch how the camera lingers for a while each time a scene ends as if to let you contemplate a little, a brilliant technique. Striking visuals and memorable scenes abound in this film, like when the conductor enters the bar and starts telling about Irimias or the tango scene when drunken folk dances to the accordion tune. The film is rich with indelible images and carefully constructed long shots. See more

Han G Apr 20, 2017 If watching painting dry, would be an genre, this would be its reference feature. Endlessly long, Ive used a month going through it. Yes, there is a story in here, a dark one, about a ruined shitty godforsaken village with out-of-work people embracing thievery and cheap spirits. While the rain never ends, and their lives more forward in snail-speed, you get to see this in slow-fucking-motion. See more

Kylo W Jan 8, 2017 Difficult to avoid the elephant in the room that this is is a seven-and-a-half hour film. And not a seven-and-a-half-hour film in which a lot of things happen, a seven-and-a-half-hour film where maybe as much happens as in the average ninety minute film, and that's probably being generous. Does it justify its monumental length, over ten-minute scenes of cows moving around a farmyard, or people sitting around waiting, or bureaucrats taking a break from typing up (in real time) a dossier on the other characters to eat their lunch (in real time), or characters walking from one place to another? Well, yes, easily. Obviously there's no reason why films "need" to come home inside two of two hours or so, other than economic ones, which I'm sure real artists ought to roundly scorn; and the complete lack of hurry enables a very different atmosphere to be built up in Satantango that you probably won't find anywhere else. It probably doesn't hurt that this is a tale of post-Soviet inertia and despair, of trudging along muddy roads and through litter-blown streets to a backdrop of constant rain and the chill of impending winter coming in. If the director's choices leave you full of existential ache and ennui he's probably done his job. (The novel on which this is based has no paragraph breaks either, I'm told.) Plotwise, we are introduced to 8 or so characters who live on a farming commune and don't seem particularly happy about it, whiling away their days boozing, bedhopping and making plans to sneak off with the others' money. A little excitement is generated when they hear that a man called Irimias, whom they'd thought was dead, is on his way back. Irimias turns out to be a charismatic (if faintly unhinged) cult leader type whose return coincides with the tragic death of a neglected little girl who kills her cat and then herself with rat poison. At the funeral, in the mood of communal grief, the other characters are receptive to Irimias's suggestion that they hand over their life savings to him to start a new model farm. Of course this doesn't actually materialise and the next day he packs them all off to various parts of the country to await activation in the next stage of his plan, while having sent unflattering reports of them as morons and degenerates to the government. So all pretty bleak on the human nature, and the human capacity for self-delusion, fronts. I definitely don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that some of the acclaim for this film in Stockholm (Budapest?) syndrome - having spent a day of your life watching it, the last thing any critic wants to do is say "yeah, it was disappointing, I was a mug". It's got some lovely cinematography but I've seen more beautifully shot films; the characters held my interest but I wouldn't say they were overwhelmingly fascinating; we've mentioned a plot but it's really just some things happening with a camera pointed at them, rather than the most gripping or devastating events in the world. But as I say, a unique experience that is quite different from almost anything else you'll get from watching films. I wouldn't want to do this every day but one day of it was a day well spent. See more

Ron R Dec 8, 2013 A 419-minute "epic black comedy" is something that I just cannot ignore. I've heard that it's difficult, but I've been through a lot in my personal film studies. See more

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Sátántangó

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