Sátántangó (Satan's Tango)

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  October 28, 2009

  columbiatch

  Somewhat uneven. The tango-like structure and extremely long dead time are pretty awesome in showing the futile inertia of the community. However whenever some douche in the film opens their mouth it becomes laughable. It's very effective in carving out large chunks of time, whic...( read more)h is really above all what the film is about. I'm not sure what the scene near the end featuring the writers discussing the characters was for. I thought I had seen enough rain in this film to last a season, but I left the theater only see it was pouring outside (plus an ominous sound of bell towing).

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  January 15, 2008

  bort16

  Satantango, Bela Tarr's 1994 7.5 hour masterpiece is incredible first and foremost in that despite its length and multiple shots of literally nothing taking place it is never dull. This is one of the most incredible films I have ever seen. Compiled of only 150 shots, many of wh...( read more)ich last for over 10 minutes, Tarr and his cinematographer manage to create a hypnotic and beautiful depiction of a desolated communal farm in post-communism Hungary. The scenery is at once withered and ugly, yet compellingly beautiful. The land is muddy and the buildings are in shambles. There are two scenes where main characters walk with the camera following as multitudes of trash blow along with them in the wind, creating a somehow hypnotic effect.
  The film opens with literally a 10 minute shot following a herd of cows wandering through a seemingly rundown farm town. The camera makes what has to be one of the most incredible pans in cinematic history panning to the left for most of the ten minute scene. Who else but Bela Tarr would try such a thing; and who else but Bela Tarr could make it work so well.
  The film follows the people of the farm in essentially three sections. The first section begins by showing Futaki having an affair with Schmidt?s wife. Schmidt we find out is planning to run away with the money the town has made over the past year but comes home and is confronted by Futaki who has snuck out only to come right back and knock on the door. They hear that the smooth talking Irimias and his sidekick Patrina, who have been believed dead by the town, are on their way back to town. The other residents, who all plan to take their money and leave town, seem to be under the thumb of Irimias and after hearing of his return meet at the local pub and discuss what to do and wait nervously for Irimias?s arrival.
  The scenes are broken down into 12 steps, such as in a Tango. Nearly all of which are connected in that we see what has already happened from another perspective. The first section as noted involves Schmidt and Futaki; the second and one of the most hypnotic in the film is of an overweight and frail doctor who sits in front of his window documenting the actions of the townspeople. He details how Futaki is slipping out of Schmidt?s house, and then goes back in, a scene which we?ve already seen except this time it?s from the window of the doctor?s house. The doctor hulks around and then realizes he must leave his home to get more alcohol. Scenes go on like this weaving in out and out the story line from different points of view.
  The first third of the film deals with the realization of Irimias? return, and exposes the corruption of the citizen?s capitalism by their greed. The second third is the post powerful. It documents a little girl who is conned by her brother and ignored by her mother. The only thing she has power over is her cat, and in order to feel that superiority she tortures and poisons the cat. I will not reveal how, but this section turns to tragedy which will be exploited by the smooth talking Irimias.
  The final third deals with the corruption of Irimias?s communist plan for the farm. He convinces them to give him the power and all the money that has been saved up only to con them. This section is brooding with satire, as is the first in some ways, and has shades of Orwell?s animal farm ? the dumb and obedient townspeople conned into subjugation by the charming Irimias.
  Essentially, Satantango is a 2 hour movie shown without its cuts bringing it to 7.5 hours. The film never uses its drawn out scenes to further the narrative, but neither does it use them for simply aesthetic purposes either. The film?s length and incredibly long shots seem to be rubbing the atmosphere right in our nose. Many shots have the camera move, raising and weaving and circling defining space like no other film. Some of the extended scenes are incredibly funny in bizarre ways, such as an extended dance seen (from which the film gets its title) where the villagers get drunk waiting for Irimias and Patrina, dancing to accordion music while the little girl peers in through the window; and another scene that circles the room while two officers dictate and type out Irimias?s statement, cleverly changing vulgar statements (which I found hilarious) and in the middle of it all, sitting down and having a snack in real time! These scenes sound perhaps boring, but somehow Tarr makes them seem riveting and when they end it?s almost sad to see it. Another incredible extended sequence sees the camera facing down at the sleeping villagers circling them ever so slowing as a narrator describes their dreams.
  
  Satantango is a film like no other. Its scope is breathtaking and its style is beautifully crafted. Tarr?s films are almost like ballets: the camera moves always gracefully and in ways that we would only imagine that a cut was necessary, never faltering and always creating incredibly beautiful dances, and they set a mood perhaps better than anyone else. Satantango is Tarr?s masterwork, epic in every sense of the word. If you get the chance to see this one, do yourself a favor and experience all 7 and a half hours of its majestic and drab atmosphere. Satantango is film for the sake of film and art for the sake of art.

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  September 8, 2009

  jimbotender

  I can't describe it.It's an opus equivalent to what philosophy and opera really mean to anyone who's a fervent supporter of all types of arts.No mental delights,no gloominess,this is an attack to the senses by a long shot!
  Whoever is against natural formations,better stay away......( read more)the hours and the times,literally.

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  October 18, 2009

  ElCochran90

  "Not that human life was so highly valued. Keeping order appears to be the business of the authorities, but in fact it's the business of all. Order. Freedom, however, has nothing human. It's something divine, something... our lives are too short for us to know properly. If you...( read more)'re looking for a link, think of Pericles, order and freedom are linked by passion. We have to believe in both, we suffer from both. Both from order and freedom. But human life is meaningful, rich, beautiful and filthy. It links everything. It mistreats freedom only... wasting it, as if it was junk. People don't like freedom, they are afraid of it. The strange thing is there is nothing to fear about freedom... order, on the other hand, can often be frightening."
  
  SÁTÁNTANGÓ (1994)
  
  Director: Béla Tarr
  Country: Hungary / Germany / Switzerland
  Genre: Drama
  Length: 450 minutes
  
  
  
  Before starting to construct a modest, fully developed essay about Béla Tarr's Sátántangó, let's make a nostalgic resume about some of the most wonderful experiences cinema has offered throughout its history. German Expressionism represented the pinnacle of Berlin's technical vision and resulted in the most visually captivating and thought-provoking classic masterpiece up to a hair-rising degree. After the Second World War, the emotional, physical and financial devastation and crisis the world was facing had a cinematic reaction in Europe and, latterly, in Mexico. The Italian neorealism is born as a form of expression that was meant to be so strong, so modest and so pitiful in nature that its resulting effect created a cathartic effect. It was a movement that, for some audiences, was released at the most inappropriate, hurtful time, but it had an everlasting effect nonetheless. New branches of filmmaking, including mere experimentation, are inevitably born and establish a trademark that would either result in a landmark way of making films or become successful failures, especially concerning films that would miserably fail because of predominant pretentiousness, dullness or missed marks. Finally, cinema became in an almost completely referential art, making homages to the beautiful stillness of the Soviet Union thanks to Andrei Tarkovsky, the black-and-white art that the film-noir genre would offer principally through the United States and the United Kingdom, and the melodramatic and clichéd touch that was completely accepted by audiences that belonged to the Golden Age of cinema, a characteristic that helped a lot to the success of the most famous American classics. Combine all of those elements in a single feature film and add approximately seven-and-a-half spoonfuls of French surrealism, mix the cinematic bowl, let it rest for four years and disseminate it through the audiences around the world before the new millennium begins. 1994 was the year that cinema itself witnessed the finest forms of cinematographic and artistic expressions combined in a single film that slowly passes as life itself. What are the main characteristics of the film? It is from Hungary, it was directed by Béla Tarr, it contains one of the longest average shot lengths in any motion picture (approximately 2.43 minutes), it has the longest shot ever filmed, which lasts around 620 seconds (excluding the films that are composed by one single take such as Timecode [2000] Russkiy Kovcheg [2002], PVC-1 [2007] and Nokta [2008]), it is one of the longest films ever made without being separated into episodes, reaching the length of 450 glorious minutes, and it is the best film ever made, a movie consisting of nearly 185 shots throughout its length. There is no director, cinema fan or critic that can wholeheartedly affirm that such masterful mammoth was released at the right time. No one can fully assure that Sátántangó rescued cinema. Bad films are still being made and Sátántangó did not precisely become an extraordinary landmark event for the arts. Does the film have the ultimate ability to achieve such massive task on Earth? Yes, it does. However, on my humble and literally insignificant opinion, not all human eyes are ready yet to digest 27,000 seconds of symbolisms and dozens of life lessons in a single sitting. The purposes and motivations within Béla Tarr's mind are the least clear things that remain. However, he is entitled to avoid giving away any explanation whatsoever. The remaining thing is this magnum opus that is as big, perplexing, captivating, gorgeous, spellbinding, orgasmic, exciting, haunting, hypnotizing, masterful, extraordinary, unparalleled, visionary, skeptic, delicate, gigantic, grandiose, wonderful, tear-inducing, breathtaking and marvelous as life itself.
  
  Seemingly, the film takes place in a remote village of 1980's Hungary. All of the residents are eagerly expecting to receive a considerable cash payment and to embark on a personal, independent life journey with such material support as their life-jumping mattress. Greed is naturally an obvious characteristic of man's ego, so some of them even plan to receive larger amounts of money earlier. An odyssey of self-reflection as enormous as the size of the Universe is about to begin when gossipy concerning Irimiás' return to town, a man everybody thought dead, is propagated. His brilliant manipulation and calm voice and attitude are the main personality characteristics that alarm all of the residents since the suspicion of him getting away with all the money through a giant scheme becomes an idea that start to haunt both their heads and their consciousness. The main purpose of Irimiás may even go beyond controlling the community with a supposedly convenient, financial plan. The only award this miscomprehended giant won is a Caligari Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Sometime in the future, perhaps some decades from now, it will finally receive the recognition it deserves. Genius directors are never properly recognized until its effect is proved to have remained through the decades. Nowadays, we have one genius on our hands going severely unnoticed. His name is Béla Tarr, and he is a poet.
  
  Sátántangó provides the ultimate, definitive cinema experience. There is almost no other experience that can surpass the epic magnitude and colossal amazement Sátántangó does without being pretentious, slow, and tedious and without Béla Tarr fancying himself. He may not even fully recognize the brilliance and striking poetry that govern his mind just like Jodorowsky had no idea if his films were particularly good or not. He is an expressionist and arguably the most faithful portrayal of the time relativity of life and of the human condition. Tarr congregates the thoughts and the emotions that some people, those people who are capable of processing and creating thoughts during every single second of consciousness regardless of the specific action they are performing at the moment, own while personally thinking that nobody can see the world nor understand their mentality. That mental attitude is completely truthful. Federico Fellini understood it. He urged the world to see life like he did. Consequently, considering the aforementioned aspects, what is the most accessible and complete art that could fully express their vision? The language of cinema is the means they resorted to, including other outstanding, timeless directors, and tried to translate it through images. Tarr used images, Fellini combined images with dialogue, Tarkovsky mixed stillness with poetry and philosophy, Buñuel mostly offered surrealism for symbolisms to be interpreted and contrasted with real life. Moreover, Tarr achieved to make the audience look at life itself without even reportedly confirming such aim.
  
  These thoughts, ways of thinking and spiritual, even soulless sensations are the ones that compose the premise of Sátántangó. It is, obviously, a very possible consequence to be amazingly hypnotized by its visual style rather than to be convinced to pay attention to the plot. The director, voluntarily or not, homages the styles that cinema had given birth to for a hundred years, considering it was filmed in a period of four years (1990-1994). Each hour of the film coverts us to one more resident, a resident that is offered the opportunity to live the rural lives held by the habitants and to witness it from different points of view. That nostalgic and typically felt sensation of wanting to be in several places at the same time is one of the divine opportunities that Béla Tarr has the mercy of offering to the viewer. It is not precisely treated as stories that intertwine, but that there is a superior force that acts with the sole, predestined intention to gather either self-centered or confused souls and make them live the exact same situation. The psychological background suddenly disappears with its importance dimming slowly. It is the aftermath that matters. It is how, each one of the characters, intentionally trying to mirror the persons that form the base of the cinematic audience, to feel empathetic, thus causing a devastating and even frightening cathartic feeling. Alcoholism, solitude, atheism, greed and arrogance bring devastating results to the perspective characters that suit one of these human defects. It is inevitable: life is life.
  
  The attention to detail is not exaggerated. The cinematography by Gábor Medvigy may be one of the most spellbinding in the entire history of cinema!!! The technique of following a character for several big lengths is a technique that was directly influenced by Greek filmmaker Theodoros Angelopoulos and Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. However, Tarkovsky emphasized the stillness of a well-balanced take, and Angelopoulos was more mobile. Either partially (Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuarón, Kenneth Brannagh and dozens others) or totally (Gus Van Sant), Sátántangó is an influential piece of filmmaking from wherever it may be seen. It diminishes the physical size of the human race and ennobles the spiritual qualities that distinguish it from above any other animal species. Have you ever wondered or even wanted to know what if feels like to stand still in the middle of the rain and looking towards the sky without the concern of being sick? Have you ever wished to know what it feels like to be the last one to leave a party that ends until the latest hours of the night? Have you ever been awed by the skill and delicacy implied in the work of a spider? The spider seems to be floating in the air, suspended by an invisible force. Yet, it is a thread so thing that it sometimes can't be seen, but it is strong enough to support its weight. Have you ever loved the visible and graphical chain reactions caused by a series of events? Have you ever stared at an amazing spectacle of nature, such as a waterfall, a flower waking up in the morning, a snake eating a rat, a seagull hunting a fish, or a mystical display of fog landing on the earth? Have you ever experienced a déjà-vu, or being internally struck by an epiphany of dramatic proportions? Those tiny little details of life, seen through the right, trained, experienced, artistic and harmonious eyes are depicted in the exact same way. A master's lens is converted into a replica of reality despite the black-and-white use, a fact that strictly convinces the viewer that the film is a colossal homage to classic films. However, these small, tiny details that praise the five senses God gave to us in his infinite wisdom are not the only ones that are glorified. Vast landscapes, the beauty of walking a straight road surrounded by fields in a balanced way with a complete view of the sky, the art that a symmetrical construction seen from the right angles involves, among other aspects that form part of the roads we daily drive through and walk on are present. The second chapter of the film titled "Raising from the Dead" has one of the most spellbinding, harmonious and beautifully realistic, suburban shots ever put to the big screen. Even so, several sequences throughout seven-and-a-half-hours are easily included into a list of the most staggering and creative, not to mention poignant sequences in the history of the motion picture.
  
  The human condition and empowerment ultimately destroy the characters. The lack of control and independence over other people or beings is symbolized in a sequence where a charming little girl tortures a cat in physical and psychological forms. The final destiny the cat faces is the same one the girl decides to face. However, she takes the necessary bravery from witnessing the act and suffering that it would probably involved through making an "inferior being" to suffer the exact same fate before she does. The psychological reasons behind her motivations may me originated from destroyed illusions, lack of attention and constant deceptions. It may be a clear outcome because of how degraded the town already is. Usually, kids are symbolisms of the original innocence the human race originally possesses before being perverted by the surrounding society, perhaps the most important element that drove to the conclusion of another future Béla Tarr film, Werckmeister Harmóniák (2000). Every single character has an epiphany, including Irimiás, and the sequence showing the aforementioned girl is the key hour of the film that suggests the doom of the village. The final sequence of the Doctor having a religious epiphany is the most memorable, surreal and discussed scene of the entire film for the majority of the audience that witnessed the spectacle of Sátántangó. The title of the film is clearly illustrated in a long, extraordinarily built and shot sequence where the villagers are desperately expecting for the unexpected arrival of Irimiás while everybody dance in a considerably drunk state. They are in the "nipples of Satan". To what extent can a remote Hungarian village become a modern Sodom? They require the aid of God, the One and Only. The wisdom and physical resemblance of Irimiás with Jesus Christ is an element that we may be able to throw into the analysis of the film. Even the chronological order of the events is relative. Subjectivity of all arts is present in the film, establishing itself as another art form.
  
  Sátántangó surpasses itself. Is that possible? Can a film surpass itself? That is a direct contradiction! This last statement I made may leave you as perplex as the overall experience of the film. Béla Tarr has reached a pinnacle within the most recent and financially successful art. It can reach such indescribable levels of grandiosity and epic measures that the human eye will even feel destroyed. It is one of those films that are mentioned when coming to a general, impossible discussion of what the best movie ever made may be. This is the best film ever made. You can finally stop the search now; the day has come. In fact, it came two decades ago, but the world wasn't ready to understand it and witness it. It surpasses all expectations, it surpasses the best masterpieces of the greatest directors that could ever have grabbed a camera, and it beats the saintliness of films by Dreyer, Bresson and Tarkovsky, the poetry by Antonioni and Resnais, the human testaments of Bergman, Fellini and Rossellini, the artistic beauty of Kobayashi and Mizoguchi, the literary talent of Truffaut, Godard and Kurosawa. Tarr is a god of cinema and Irimiás is his Jesus who everybody thought was dead, but has come back for our redemption and even having the mercy for letting us have a new beginning. If we deny Him, the eerie music plays its role, ending in the same way the ending scene closes: with darkness... eternal darkness... We should stop creating and imagining the sound of bells, because God is the owner of all. Perdition and an eternal wait for something that will never come are not the best way. They will never become the answers to the prayers we never did.
  
  100/100

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  October 11, 2009

  Phonex

  Sátántangó opens to a languid, insidiously ironic shot of cattle traversing the muddy field of a near desolate, neglected communal farm in rural Hungary, as the cows concurrently attempt to mate during the process of migration.

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  September 9, 2009

  Epicouros

  in my youth , we could see a film of 3 or 4 hours , without problem , also many films those days were over 180 minutes ...so i am ready to see a film of such long duration . so it is not recommended for people who likes only the speed in a film or people addicted to television r...( read more)ules
  i wrote this , cause in my opinion you can t transfer in a review the multiple selections of fine arts which are in one only film . for this for others this is a bad film or for me a masterpiece . you must see it , and then yourself to think what you watched
  P.S ...I see many times people who ask , where the can find the DVD not only for this film ....well the solution can be the huge internet stores like e-BAY or Amazon ...i was surprised when i found there very rare films

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  August 5, 2009

  g0y

  A rural town has its betraying and drunken inhabitants at the center of attention when a pair of previously thought deceased denizens are heard to soon arrive. Among much of the town's mistakes and uncontrolled actions is one which will cost it further betrayal and the citizens' ...( read more)way of life.
  
  
  
  
  There is a good amount of talent involved with Satantango. At such lengths a film obviously needs a cast to perform impeccably by means of natural, professional and improvised performances, cinematography that outdoes most of the attempts from films of the new millennium, and its sound design to be spellbinding and otherworldly or at least emotive in a sense so that viewers can stay connected if not through pace.
  
  
  
  
  Satantango does have its cast, photography and other share of things to boot but its mixture of conventional and unconventional filming causes fluctuations between godlike moments and granted ones. The film judged as a whole didn't create much greatness though I believe it deserves a higher rating (A perfect one) because of multiple scenes that warrant it. Individually rating scene by scene and coming up with an average would more or less be the manner in which I rated it. Because of any possible deterrents from full enjoyment and appreciation, I've decided to rewatch it perhaps in ten years seeing as how I've only been interested in art house for two.
  
  
  
  
  Multiple shots, as previously mentioned, are expertly crafted and composed. I'll say my favorite is the opening where cows spontaneously herd from a warehouse to the field, all of this set to an entrancing, lulling sound of chiming, humming bells. This scene like various, various scenes in the rest of the film captures naturalistic instances: the cows wander a moment in mud and their footsteps echo loudly; some cows moo and its echo sounds beautiful; others attempt to mate. Scenes are not always as peaceful and metaphorical but they are impressively long and shot in one take. (This and the non-linear structure as well as the re-creation of scenes from different angles were a major influence on Gus Van Sant.)
  
  
  
  
  It is unconventional in the sense that characters are truly fully developed, moments taking from ten to twenty minutes focusing on one individual almost like a novel. This character development is paired with the storyline, a conventional act that I did not wholly find interest in. It is not the story's fault; I have my personal taste. Most scenes where the photography dulled and characters spoke back and forth were anchored in an unnecessary realism with myself fully aware that there was a camera filming said characters. But as it is I'll still declare it a mammoth achievement as I felt it more of a three-hour movie. It would be interesting to see this style and manner of film making under surrealism.
  
  
  
  
  Lastly, I have to address the child actor (The one on the cover) who was shockingly talented for her age. She elicits a psychotic unease with her naturalistic actions (Real time feline abuse) and facial expressions.

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  March 7, 2009

  wotansschwert

  One of the greatest achievements known to the screen. This is one of the very very few movies to bottle and cherish forever...

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  November 12, 2008

  closedmouth

  This is what film was invented for. I feel I can appreciate Gerry more after watching this. A word of warning, though: if you love cats...prepare to be severely disturbed.

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  September 9, 2008

  NoirChick

  What an extraordinary film. 7 hours long, but utterly spellbinding. Bela Tarr is one of the world's finest directors.

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