User Reviews

Anything this movie has to say about humanity could have been said in one-tenth the time while also being said ten times better. Tell me, was there a reason we needed three solid minutes of children refusing to go to bed? Or why the scene of Janos and his uncle walking down the street needed a two-minute silence in the middle of it? Did the director think I wouldn't understand how Janos managed to get a bowl of hot soup if they didn't show me every step of the cooking and plating process? This film is pretentious, self-gratifying drivel, and whoever made it clearly has no respect for anybody's time.

"All I ask is that you step with me into the boundlessness where constancy, quietude and peace, infinite emptiness reign." And yes, I ask you to do just that. This is a film which mesmerizes you if you allow it. I say that because in the nameless isolated village in Communist times there is a sensation of abnormality, almost like a twilight zone if you will. Throughout the entire picture there is a sustained level of surrealism. The film itself only has 39 shots; yet co-directors Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky masterfully use camera movements to absolute precision. Tarr is an observer. He is respectful and patient with his characters. He is personal, human, capturing their expressions, often lost in thought. The very first scene takes place in a bar at closing hour, where the drunk patrons are sent home, but one insists that János (Lars Rudolph), the local newspaperman, should show them his act. What is his act? He starts a theatrical, Shakespearean sketch about the birth and nature of the Universe, where one drunk patron is put in the middle of the room to be the Sun, another is the Earth and another is the Moon rotating around the Earth, which rotates around the Sun. It is funny, ambiguous, bizarre, surreal, beautiful, sad, all at the same time. It evokes so many emotions, so many thoughts. In the end, the shot pans away as the men stand in place. On their faces, you can see their emptiness, their minds **** out by the political condition they are in. This is what, I believe, Tarr wishes to express the most through this film. The communist regime that plagued Eastern Europe was not about damaging economy or social stability, it was not even about the lack of freedom, but the lack of culture and art. It is humanity's most uplifting characteristic, it is what connects us to the divine. Which brings us to György Eszter (Peter Fitz). A man so hungry for artistic embrace that he left his wife and resorted to the very fundamentals of music which praised the gods, believing that everything after the works of musical theorist Andreas Werckmeister is not worthy of being artistic. More so, there is a circus coming to town. It involves a giant dead whale as its primary attraction. János if the first one to see it. He is lost in silence, and I was too. So interesting, a dead whale, tons of rotting flesh just put on display, its lifeless eye looking back at him. He remains in awe of what he saw, expressing "how mysterious is the Lord that he amuses Himself with such strange creatures". The circus also brings one named The Prince, yet he is never shown. He is a deformed man, who brings a revolutionary tone and incites at revolt. Not soon, the people revolt. But this was not surprising. Tarr embraced this mental void and darkness from the start. There was a constant sounding hum in nearly every scene, there was barely and dialogue except village gossip about the horrors of the Prince. These are all delivered with a theater panache, one of the best examples being the hospital scene. There is a crowd moving towards it and for a good 4 minutes they are filmed walking, but not from afar. You are put right in the middle of them, the camera panning through their faces. Afterwards, they beat the patients, and when they leave, yet again, they do it in a Shakespearean organized manner. 'Werckmeister Harmonies' is, undoubtedly, a masterpiece. Whether the dead whale is an allegory for the lifeless Communist society, or just put for artistic merit, I do not know. Whether the film is about the close-minded apocalyptic visions of Communist villagers or Tarr's own fears and experiences of the end of the world in the year 2000, I, again, do not know. But that's why I like it and that's why this is one of the greatest films ever made.

Depth: 2/2 Importance: 2/2 Relevance: 2/2 Artistry: 2/2 Imagination: 2/2 Total: 10/10

This is certainly one of the best films shot by Bela Tarr, and equally certainly his most accessible one. While it would be nice if the viewer had read previously the "Melancholy of Resistance" novel, on which the film was based, the film stands extremely well on its own- only the delirium of Krasnahorkay's loosely punctuated, Ulysses-style text is absent. Needless to say, people who think Hollywood flicks have any relationship to the seventh art should look elsewhere: they will be disappointed.

Werckmeister Harmonies is an example of how we take a harmony and make them look great in front of the view we're seeing and reviewing this movie in any course of the park.

Béla Tarr is a master filmmaker, as cliché as that might be to say. Really though, he's up there with Tarkovsky, Bergman and all the other maestros of cinema. Werckmeister Harmonies is the best film of the 21st century so far, and it's going to be tough to beat. In it there's a visual and metaphorical battle between darkness and light, taking place in that world that Tarr creates so well in his films. You know, the roads with no cars on; buildings so bleak they're concentration camp-like. It's dismal here, really dismal. The opening shot (one of a stunning 39 in a film two and a half hours long), is cinematic perfection. It sets up everything to come in the film in terms of theme, style and is an example of the strange melancholy this art form can subtly create when the camera is in the right hands. This pub - realism - becomes a stage - theatre. We go from the backsides of drunken dwellers who stumble around the camera as if placed there to an elaborate fakery; a visual performance of a total eclipse. Darkness comes, then light saves everyone from this cold. It's humourous, the drunken men trying to act as the earth, moon and sun (and really messing up the solar system). An indication that humour will be present in Werckmeister Harmonies, and is present (I'm hinting at the kids needing to be put to bed). The performance becomes quite profound; Mihaly Vig's beautiful score plays. It ends with light coming - or does it? As the protagonist leaves the pub, the bartender tells him his play is over, to which our lead disagrees. Darkness is still prevalent, and light has not come yet. There is something grave threatening this town to come. We see this further, in the next shot. A lot of this film is about going somewhere, and shot number two is just that. But going where? The figure walks in a bit of light which, as he progresses, gets smaller and darkness fills the frame. Not too long after this moment, a large truck arrives in town. Its movement is eerie (slow, since it carries a whale) and it appears from the darkness. This is what threatens this community. Far more gripping than I initially thought, Werckmeister Harmonies is a deeply profound philosophical beauty of a film. A masterpiece.

This guy imagined a good movie, but he wasn't able to do it. He got lost in typical pretentious mystification of art-house European cinema. A simple e strong story about social disorder is wasted on the director's need to profess his affiliation to a Cannes-type cinema. Great photography and excellent camera operation wasted on scenes that result remarkably boring. Acting direction has many ridiculous and amateurish moments. Beautiful music is also wasted when it's not used on the proper moments. In short, a film that could have been good if the director was more concerned with the film he wanted to make then he was with the kind of cinema from which he intends to move away from.

This movie is aggressively pretentious and tedious. If you want to watch a contemplative film, watch Stalker by Tarkovsky instead. "I despise stories, as they mislead people into believing that something has happened." -Bela Tarr Rest assured, Mr. Tarr, no one will be mislead into believe anything has happened in Werckmeister Harmonies.

Skillfully structured - There are those filmmakers that have the ability to change our perception of film as a medium for telling stories through images and dialog, communicating with a universal audience and creating awareness. Directors like Campion, Loach, Bergman, Kubrick, Kieslowski and Tarkovsky are certainly some of those, and i had a similar experience after watching Bèla Tarr`s third feature, co-directed by Agnes Hranitzky, which tells the story of an utterly cold Hungarian town where the inhabitants await the arrival of a traveling circus which main attractions are a giant whale and a deformed speaking figure called The Prince. Most of the residents are suspicious about the upcoming event, but the local postman named Janus perceives it as a good sign. While viewing this film i instantly began thinking of other east European directors such as Alexandr Sokurov, Theo Angelopoulos and Andrei Zvyagintsev who's film are marked by their focus on visual composition, length, long takes and concise dialog. Bèla Tarr's dark and tender vision of life in a remote provincial town is filmed in black and white, contains 39 long takes during a runtime of 225 minutes, is told through long monologues and concentrated dialog, uses natural sounds and has an unforgettable instrumental theme song composed by the directors longtime companion MihÃly Vig. This theme song and the refined black and white photography which was created by four photographers, evokes the collective state of mind of the citizens in the town and elevates the powerful moods which becomes a large character within this skillfully structured film. "Werckmeister Harmonies" an adaptation of a novel called "The Melancholy Of Resistance" which was written by LÃszlò Krazsnahorkai in 1989 and the movie title refers to Andreas Wercmeister (1645-1706), a composer from the Baroque era and a musical theorist. It is a chronologically narrated character study about a man who's faith is immensely challenged when he begins to realize what is actually happening to the human kind he so firmly believes in. The story written by Bèla Tarr and LÃszlò Krazsnahorkai follows the main character during the course of one eventful day as he walks through the streets of his hometown looking for signs that will confirm his believes. The caring and childishly curious Janus is brought to life by German actor Lars Rudolph who appeared in Hal Hartley's "Flirt" (1995) and Tom Tykwer's "The Princess and the Warrior" (2000). With a mysterious face that expresses a string of emotions and a subtly underplayed performance, he creates a rare and intriguing character. I consider this slow-paced fictional drama as a small masterpiece that communicates it's message with conviction and tells a credible story that is not hard to follow, but not always easy to watch. Bèla Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky's directing is commendable, their realized vision is magnificent, the acting is overall convincing, the opening scene is a striking example of cinematic art and what eventually puts all the pieces together and pointedly contrasts the common feelings of sadness that imprisons the souls of this film, is Hungarian composer, poet and songwriter MihÃly Vig`s spiritual music.