Someone said before me: "Cinema dies with Béla Tarr". I believe this to be completely reasonable view; and I'm afraid it is mostly true. If this the last Tarr I will ever see, I just can't express my profound sadness. Sadness that whispers me gently into sleep in a dark and hollow room I call home.
Béla Tarr is the voice in the wilderness, wilderness of most humane nature. He is the wind and wailing of - not only the lonely human, but also - the turbulent tides of Hungarian history and for that matter, the whole of Europe. The essence of Béla Tarr is in the way he creates macrocosm inside the microcosm of a single human being.
The wind in plateau keeps on screaming, silently whispering. Telling truths about ourselves, of other humans. Who we never quite seem to connect with. And the world keeps going on, after we are gone - the wind will be there. Probably the gypsies will also be there - still.
Tarr's human is almost always and everywhere lonely, he is strong and weak, but apart from all that he (or she) is always of the most nietzschean in stature. Proud and lost; lost because of his own inescapable condition. It's also about the eternal return and it's also about the potatoes. They sure are nice and warm, bring the warmth back into your freezing body.
I'm a huge fan of his Werckmeister harmóniák (2000) and Sátántangó (1994), though there is nothing wrong with his other work also - rest of his work just doesn't reach the highest peak of filmmaking. A torinói ló is a magnificent, almost indescribable finale to his career if that is how it's going to be.
Béla Tarr is the voice in the wilderness, wilderness of most humane nature. He is the wind and wailing of - not only the lonely human, but also - the turbulent tides of Hungarian history and for that matter, the whole of Europe. The essence of Béla Tarr is in the way he creates macrocosm inside the microcosm of a single human being.
The wind in plateau keeps on screaming, silently whispering. Telling truths about ourselves, of other humans. Who we never quite seem to connect with. And the world keeps going on, after we are gone - the wind will be there. Probably the gypsies will also be there - still.
Tarr's human is almost always and everywhere lonely, he is strong and weak, but apart from all that he (or she) is always of the most nietzschean in stature. Proud and lost; lost because of his own inescapable condition. It's also about the eternal return and it's also about the potatoes. They sure are nice and warm, bring the warmth back into your freezing body.
I'm a huge fan of his Werckmeister harmóniák (2000) and Sátántangó (1994), though there is nothing wrong with his other work also - rest of his work just doesn't reach the highest peak of filmmaking. A torinói ló is a magnificent, almost indescribable finale to his career if that is how it's going to be.