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36 out of 43 people found the following review useful: Quality cinema that forces us to look at the art form in a different way (even if you're patience is tried in the doing so), 15 August 2007 Author: Chris Docker (eyeforfilm) from Scotland, United Kingdom
When you were a kid, did you ever hear the phrase, "You'll understand when you're older"? This weighty, grinding, almost intimidatingly lugubrious film from iconic filmmaker Béla Tarr may make you cringe in your seat as if it is all just too awful to understand.The Man From London is interminable hours of the most hauntingly composed black and white photography you could see for a long time. There's slow symbolism dense enough to sink the Titanic. You'd beg them to crank the movie faster, but daren't in case it's a masterpiece. As a stylistic exercise it leaves you gasping, but working it all out is another matter. There's a Wagnerian majesty to it. A dignity that defies intellectual comprehension. At least until it has had time to sink in at a deeper level.The opening shot made me think of that boat that ferried the dead across the River Styx. We see the hull of the ship. It is drained of colour and sunlight. Eventually waves of darkness drift down across the screen like eyelids closing. We are forced to contemplate it. The shimmer of lamplight on the damp dockside. Looking out through the lattice squares of a window, train lines frame the noirish scene. Low key lighting and oblique angles evoke a sense of dread.We have panned back to take in more of the ship in the desolate jetty. This could be somewhere in Eastern Europe. Somewhere you pull your coat collar around you tight to keep out the damp, dank feelings permeating everything. Somewhere you'd rather not be alone.Diagonal foreground lines of an overcoat collar intersect our view. We look over the shoulder of someone (Maloin) watching the scene below. There, men dressed in black woollen overcoats and hats. Only their faces highlighted. Steam issuing from between the wheels of a waiting train. A wordless conspiracy over a suitcase. Feel the cold, clammy atmosphere of undetermined threat.The Man from London proceeds not at the speed of hell freezing over. More like a hell frozen over long ago and never to thaw. Ever. A place from which there is no escape. A god-forsaken wasteland.The plot, what there is of it, is taken from a story by Simenon. It involves the discovery of a suitcase of money that railway switchman Maolin fishes out of the drink. The corpse comes later. The dosh was stolen. But the mystery, while satisfyingly concluded in its own good time, is little more than a pretext. Enigmatic justice dispensed by a police inspector takes our mind off to unexpected pathways. Hope, hopelessness, redemption (and without any simplistic religious overtones). Justice and humanity. But the real power of the film is in its formalist rejection of cinematic convention. There is a plot, but it is not plot-driven. The landscape, the bare-furnished rooms, are all protagonists, as much as the sullen and uncommunicative characters.The cinematography cuts the air like a Baltic ice-axe and supports the film's main theses. We first see Tilda Swinton, Maloin's wife, almost as a hidden part of this surly man's own persona. The camera pans up slowly from behind Maloin, revealing her slight figure as she sits opposite him. In another scene, she goes to the window and is totally engulfed by sunshine for a brief second until she closes the shutters to let him sleep. Inside Maolin and his humdrum existence is hope for dignity, for something better. But it seems so unlikely that he can barely face the possibility. Precisely focused shots draw attention to tiny, grimy detail (often further enhanced by use of 'chiaroscuro' deep-shadows lighting). The grain of wood or the lines on skin, or even fingernails. We feel Maloin's almost invincible acceptance of his lot at a painfully deep level.Compositions have the breathtaking precision and deliberateness of such Tarkovsky masterpieces as Andrei Rublev, but with the megalithic slowness that is one of Tarr's trademarks.Apart from forcing us to contemplate much more deeply than we are used to in a world of fast-moving, CGI-enhanced cinema, the slowing-down reveals other interesting effects. In one scene, there is a long, unmoving head-shot of the murderer's wife under questioning. She says nothing for several minutes, but we see the gradual build-up of emotion in her features (the scene is reminiscent of Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, which are fortuitously exhibiting in the Edinburgh Festival at the same time as the UK premiere of The Man From London).The forlorn beauty of The Man From London might inspire you to question the assumptions we make about cinema, instilling a deeper appreciation of the aesthetic possibilities of this wondrous art form. Or you may leave disenchanted, claiming that, however wonderful the characterisation and deep-stage photography exhibition might be, it seems rather less than the sum of its parts. Either way, the coldness of the atmosphere will have eaten into you to such an extent that you long for a bowl of hot soup or a mug of warming coffee. Your body wants to escape the implacable struggles and silences, the constant dirge-like accordion, the austere minimalism, and dialogue designed as much for its audio qualities as its content. And if you do, I hope, like me, you will look back and treasure what you might almost dismiss.
24 out of 29 people found the following review useful: Stylish, visually compelling cinema - an ode to noir, 13 August 2007 Author: Paul Martin from Melbourne, Australia
I saw this at a sold-out screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival and was surprised at how good it was, considering I'd heard some negative or indifferent murmurs about it. It goes to show that you never can judge a film until you've seen it yourself. This is my first Béla Tarr film.The Man From London is clearly a highly stylised homage to film noir of the 1940s. The lush black and white photography, using classic noir shadows and imagery is a feast for the eyes. The camera work is slow, fluid and dynamic, with very long takes in which little seems to happen. Combined with a mesmerising score slightly reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti's sounds on Twin Peaks, a mood of ever-growing suspense and menace is created that powerfully engages from start to finish.The basic premise of the film is that Maloin, a night harbour worker (played by Miroslav Krobot) witnesses some treachery between a disembarking passenger of a ship (the man in the title) and another man on-shore. A death may have occurred and when Maloin investigates, he becomes involved in an intrigue from which he cannot extricate himself.Tilda Swinton plays Maloin's wife, though her voice is dubbed over in Hungarian. The film was part-English produced, so maybe a name known to English-speaking audiences was required to market the film. The role was small, and I always find Swinton an interesting actor, so it was a curiosity to see her in this role. In general the tired and worn-out characters looked terrific on film, with a timeless quality that matched the aesthetics of the decaying town.This is not a film for everyone, as it requires some patience and appreciation for aesthetics over action, and there is not a whole lot of the latter. While the film's major strength is its visuals, they serve to subtly drive the slow-burn suspense. I was surprised when people started walking out of the film, first one by one, then after an hour about twenty or so walked out in unison. I estimate 60 people left, around 10% of the audience. I was equally surprised that so few walked out of Inland Empire (I counted only four, about 1% of the also sold-out screening a few nights earlier).Still, what's a good film or a good film festival without walk-outs? Many of my favourite films have had them. I have read that this is not one of Tarr's best films. Well, I loved it and must seek out his others.
14 out of 19 people found the following review useful: Tarr's Noir, 21 September 2007 Author: MacAindrais from Canada
The Man from London (2007) **** After 7 years Bela Tarr makes his return with an adaptation of a Georges Simenon's story. That Tarr has chosen to make an adaptation of a noir novel means that he has chosen to make his own, very unique take on film noir. That in itself has created one of the first rifts that has become evident in the criticism the film has received from fans of Tarr's previous films.The film opens with a slow pan up from the water to the bow of a ship. The camera slowly climbs up and through the hatch of a watch tower. We stop behind Maloin (Miroslav Krabot) as he watches a conversation between two men on the ship. The camera follows as they leave. One of the men meets someone else on the docks and they get into an argument, and eventually a fight. One falls in the water, taking a case with him that had been thrown from the ship to the other man, Brown. Brown, stunned that the man isn't resurfacing, takes off. Maloin watches, then goes down and fishes the case from the water. He discovers that it is full of money and then meticulously dries out each bill.This sets up the plot to which the rest of the film will adhere. This is the first major departure from classical Tarr films. The film is dedicated to this plot and the affect the money and crime has on Maloin. After stopping at the pub for a drink Maloin walks home through a beautifully framed alleyway. He sees a young woman mopping the floor, her dress barely covering her behind. We think he must be gawking, only to discover that he is angry that she, his daughter, is forced to mop the floors at work where everyone can "look at her arse." He hides the money from her and his wife, played by British actress Tilda Swinton.Tarr creates a surprising amount of tension through out the film. Brown, watches Maloin leave his tower and assumes he must know something. He will follow Maloin for much of the rest of the movie. In the aforementioned scene in the ally, we think the camera might stay with Maloin's daughter (Erika Bok) but it only stops to look, and then whip back as we discover Brown is following.Mihaly Vig's excellent score and the slow, very deliberate camera movements work wonderfully. One particular scene, which done by any one else, may have came across as quite conventional, but the way it is shot and the brooding score transcend it - Maloin awakes from sleep, he walks to the window, , and looks out. Far below on the street is Brown standing in the only lit spot, under a lamp post. He stands there while the camera slowly zooms in. He then walks off.The film is filled with many transcending moments, and the camera while moving in typical Tarr fashion, also I think is different in a very important way. In Tarr's other films, the camera moves along as a participant. In The Man from London, the camera is simply an observer. This point is evident in one pivotal scene where Maloin will walk into his shed to confront someone while the camera is forced to wait outside. Long takes and slow movements follow the actors wherever they go. Swinton is captured in one particularly beautiful shot as she is totally absorbed into sunlight light, creating an almost ghostly image. Edits are said to be events in themselves in Tarr's films because they occur so rarely. The fades and extended black screens between takes, though different from his other work, I think work perfectly to capture a distinct mood.It is important that the acting in the film be mentioned. Though all performances are good, perhaps the best comes from Brown's wife, who has only a few lines of dialog. She is confronted by the police inspector who knows that Brown stole the money and has committed murder since the body has now washed up. The camera stays on her face for several minutes as the inspector describes her husband's crimes and what she must do. She displays such a disciplined level of sadness that is truly incredible. No reaction shot has ever seemed so real or so affecting.Criticisms I think are based in that the film is so similar in style to Tarr's other films that is somewhat confusing to accept that this is essentially a different film. Tarr claims to be making the same film over and over, but there is a very different tone here. He is essentially making film noir. Many have argued that this is a minor work. I disagree. I think this is a very accomplished piece of film. I truly believe that it will be widely accepted as a great film given time. I don't necessarily think that it is as good as Werckmeister Harmonies, or Satantango, but I think it is overall better than Damnation. That said, I must say that I've loved all of Tarr's films.Of course there are simply those who cannot handle Tarr's endurance test films. One woman declared loudly that it was the worst film she's ever seen. I think this woman needs to see more films. Tarr makes films outside all convention, and I think that The Man from London is outside of his thus far established work. Any great filmmaker will be judged against his previous work, which I think is a shame. Each film should stand on its own merits, and this has not been the case with The Man from London. Herein lays the answer to its criticisms. If you see this film, forget all you know about film, even Tarr's. Sit, and wallow in the film's magnificent black and white shadowy cinematography; allow yourself to become nothing more than what the camera is asking you to.
10 out of 13 people found the following review useful: The Essence of the Human Condition, 21 August 2007 Author: Stanislas Lefort from Vevey, Switzerland
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
The storyline is taken from a Georges Simenon novel, L'Homme de Londres (1934). In an interview in 2001, Béla Tarr avowed: "I believe that you keep making the same film throughout your whole life." His most recent work upholds this declaration, placing itself squarely in line with his previous feature-length films, especially Damnation (1988), Sátántangó (Satan's Tango) (1994) et Werckmeister Harmonies (2000). These four films share identical layouts of the credits, black-and-white film, minimalist dialogues, long scenes, and stories that are more suggestive than narrative in nature. Most of Tarr's actors are not professionals and several appear in different films, notably Erika Bók who is Estike in Sátántangó and Henriette in The Man from London. As for the handful of foreign actors, they are dubbed into Hungarian.If it was amusing to see Gyula Pauer play the innkeeper in two films, his third appearance in The Man from London indicates that the choice is deliberate. Same with the role of Henriette (Maloin's daughter), assigned to Erika Bók, who appeared as Estike (the child with the cat) in Sátántangó. In all of Tarr's stories, the innkeeper appears as one, single person. This is also true of Estike and Henriette who share a common destiny as child-victims. And yet Tarr only winks at us across the characters of different films; the most ordinary actions are equally allusions throughout all his works creating a universe of apparently insignificant habits. Maloin drinks in accordance with the same ritual as the neighbor-informer of Sátántangó. And when he throws a log on his fire, the stove in the first image of Werckmeister Harmonies springs to mind. So many habits in which the insignificant becomes significant because the images and the characters of Tarr's ceaselessly question one another: their existence is a succession of futile, routine gestures whose repetition bears witness to their vanity. Habits are simultaneously both their prison and their lifeline in the labyrinth of existence, giving them something to hold onto while, at the same time, preventing them from escaping their condition. True, the protagonists seek to purify their existence (Valuska), to change their destiny (Karrer, Irimiás, Maloin), to reverse the course of History (Eszter and his theories of sound). But they are inevitably reeled back in and crushed.Though the decor and the ambiance are consistent with classic film noir, the unraveling of the plot is so exact that two viewings are necessary in order to begin to understand. But, at the base of things, the story doesn't really matter. What Tarr shows us is less a criminal entanglement than the poles between which the characters oscillate. First there is the black and the white, admirably opposed in the first scene where half of the ship's body is illuminated. The screen is black at the beginning of the film; it is white at the end. The music is also bipolar. From the first notes of a long arpeggio, we believe we hear an organ, then realize it is the sirens of ships. In Homer's Odyssey, the song of the Sirens, inaccessible feminine creatures, threw the sailors off-course so that their ships ran aground on the reefs. Here, the song of the sirens is like a requiem. This dirge contrasts with the accordion ritornello, reminiscent of the inns in Sátántangó and Damnation. With Tarr, bistros are always places of escape where one re-creates the world, gets drunk, and devises the most absurd projects. The melody, acting as a setting for these hallucinations, allows death to be forgotten, but which the arpeggio obstinately calls back to mind. Its minor key and its infinite nostalgia only make it less able to elude destiny.Where does The Man from London fit into Tarr's works? In the first scene – a shot twelve minutes in length – the lens surveys and captures the entire space in a way unknown to the tracking in Tarr's other works, and shows, by its fluidity and freedom, at what point the characters are prisoners of their own gravitation. The camera seems to have wings so it may better watch the men and love them, without ever judging them. In this way, it is sister to Damiel and Cassiel, the two angels of Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987). Like them, Tarr's camera leisurely insinuates itself, beyond concepts of time, and penetrates the heart of beings, ready to capture each of their convulsions in a world where the only certainty is death, humanity's habit par excellence. Looking at the earlier films, several of the characters in The Man from London bring an unexpected contrast. Such as the Inspector Molisson, who seems above the law and alone brings justice. No other film of Tarr's has a main character so tenuously attached to the human condition. His behavior with Maloin and Mrs. Brown is Christ-like, in a manner of speaking. He consoles; he cleanses sins; he tries to console. In comparison, Mrs. Brown seems like Anna Schmid, Harry Lime's mistress in The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). Both women were used to entrap the man they loved. Both women, in the last images of the films, refuse compensation and disappear, dignity intact. In the end, Maloin, marred by sudden wealth, seeks redemption by turning himself in. He isn't sure if Molisson's pardon will allow him to find peace once again. The glass harp that punctuates the siren arpeggio as Molisson re-enacts the toss of the suitcase greets only Molisson's discovery of the truth. The final notes of the film, still played on the glass harp, mark the end of the inspector's work and the end of the riddle. Life continues for Maloin and Mrs. Brown with both their doubts and failures. But what makes The Man from London a new development in the works of Béla Tarr is the fact that this film brings together so perfectly cinematography, music, and plot line, creating a complete and emotional spectacle about the human condition.(Thanks to Jessica Alexander for the English translation!)
5 out of 8 people found the following review useful: The Man That Wasn't There - a stylistic excursion through a trackless noir landscape, 25 January 2009 Author: chaos-rampant from Greece
The night is quiet, shapes of faint, lifeless forms in the grim perimeters about, the streets lie black and steaming in these alien reaches of a city of curious architecture much like yours perhaps. The city beset by a thing unknown and will it come from forest or sea? When it comes it's the hull of a ship, a long vertical shot tracking across a vessel that looks like a bleached bone washed out from stygeian waters. The camera peering from behind smudged glass to the ship anchored in port and a railway station and moving three times back and forth on its tracks as though some kind of ritual must be performed before the movie can happen.There's not much plot or story to speak of. A suitcase full of money. A crime committed. Smalltime crooks and an ordinary man in the wrong place the wrong time. The banality of a plot so unmistakeably familiar contrasted with intimate moments of interpersonal drama. Small bursts of life woven into a genre framework so thin and transparent as to be nonexistent, a form of dramatic percussion to the wandering, seemingly aimless tracking shots. Indeed there are staccato rhythms throughout the movie to reflect that. The thumps of a ball, a man pulling levers, sounds of billiard from another room, the slashes of a meat-cleaver.Transfixing and hypnotic, this is the visual equivalent to the albums of drone artists Sunn0))) and their 14 minute monotonous drones. Mostly an aural film than anything else. Tarr's camera ferrying us across dark corridors and bleak interiors, a godforsaken noirish landscape populated by haggard people wearing waxen masks.If you find yourself growing restless after 30 minutes, then give up on it because it doesn't get any different. It just wasn't meant to happen. Watching THE MAN FROM London is like watching a titanic ship slowly advancing in murky waters with no bearing or mark upon them and the only way to measure its progress is against that of the sun's. A little more than two hours of beautiful black and white photography, THE MAN FROM London is in no rush to get anywhere probably because it doesn't have anywhere to get to any more than it seems to come from anyplace particular. It just hovers there, suspended in the middle, going from dark to dark and before you know it it's over and done with.You'd be forgiven for expecting a 'normal' movie from the man responsible for SATANTANGO but in the end what is this all about? No particular insights into human nature. No deep characterization to speak of. The faces of the characters are more interesting than what they have to say. And what Tilda Swinton has to say has been dubbed into Hungarish. No, this is all about the mood and ambiance, a stylistic excursion in trackless neo-noir vales, Tarr's camera an intermittent behemoth travelling through encapments of the damned.
2 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Time Stop, 20 November 2009 Author: tieman64 from United Kingdom
"All stories have resolved themselves. All that remains is time." - Bela TarrMaloin is a grim-faced railroad employee. He sits in a signal cage all night, pulling giant levers which cause the rail tracks and train signals to alternate. In other words, he makes choices for a living.One day Maloin witnesses a murder, a small briefcase being lost in the scuffle. He retrieves this briefcase and opens it up to find six thousand dollars in stolen cash. Maloin faces a moral dilemma. Does he keep the money or does he return it to the authorities? It's a familiar plot, but Hungarian director Bela Tarr handles the material with a unique touch. This is a world of infinite seas and lustrous blacks, the film's characters rarely speaking, Tarr's camera observing them all with agonisingly slow long takes. Many have complained that the film is "boring", "sluggish" and "listless", but this is the very point. These are characters who have long accepted a sort of slow and inevitable deterioration. They've chosen to live in complete isolation, realising that no amount of participation will halt death.And so the antagonist of this film is time itself. Time is a monster, slowly sucking away at characters who have long become mechanical, alienated and resigned to fate.But of course Maloin sees a way out. This little briefcase of money could bring him happiness, couldn't it? The film thus becomes a sort of religious parable, the temptations of a new life seducing Maloin. Does he reject the money and embrace a kind of ontological damnation or does he embrace the money and hope for some brief respite? The film uses the tropes of noir – high contrast lighting, men in coats, a crime, a moral dilemma, a prowling police inspector, cold urban spaces etc – but Tarr has flattened these signifiers and placed them within a world that is comprised of four clearly defined planes.There's the domestic space (the home in which we eat/sleep/defecate), the space of entertainment or amusement (the bar, where our hero plays chess, gets drunk etc), the space of occupation (the railroad and harbour) and beyond (the infinite ocean). The first 3 spaces sit next to the ocean. They teeter fearfully beside this limitless mass of black, always threatening to fall in. Why do they fear the ocean? Because it is the final plane. A plane of murder and death, both spiritual and physical.Indeed, water has such a strong impression on the inhabitants of this world that when Maloin sees his daughter sweeping water out of a shop - symbollically pushing back time - he immediately resolves to make her happy, forcing her to quit her job and buying her a fancy new coat. But of course it's no use. These are empty purchases, idyllic gestures which Maloin doesn't believe in anyway. When he argues with his wife over the purchase, Tarr's instinct is to cut to the little girl mechanically eating a bowl of soup. Spoon after spoon she swallows...spoon...after...spoon...7.5/10 – Tarr seems to be repeating himself here. The film is nowhere near as great as "Werckmeister Harmonies", and without the seductiveness of "Damnation", Tarr's existential musings simply seem pretentious. For those who find the film ponderously slow, watch it at x2 speed.Worth two viewings.
1 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Struggle and temptation, 12 July 2009 Author: matthewscott8 from United Kingdom
Let me just start by saying that this is a very beautiful film. It is shot very well, and it has a haunting score that repeated in my mind the whole of the next day. I think that this is a great tribute to Georges Simenon.The main character is a guy called Maloin (Miroslav Krobot) who works mostly at night in a glass cage down at the harbour, a signalman for the railway that picks up passengers from the ferry. The film is shot in black and white in the old port of Bastia on the island of Corsica which is quite scenic though not in a meretricious way, and I'm sure more of a purgatory for Maloin. I once read a powerful short novel by John Steinbeck called The Pearl, where a fisherman discovers a large pearl that will enable him and his family to live a life with less struggle. At the moment he discovers the pearl he lets forth a huge scream, it's a great release from suffering. So here Maloin also has a pearl dropped into his lap, which as in the Steinbeck novella will however cause it's possessor much turmoil. Tarr also manages to access this raw Steinbeckian power. He does this through looking at the relationship between Maloin and his daughter. Maloin is upset that she works in a grocery store where the proprietress is an abuser, and that her arse is available for any man to see (the words of the film). So when he comes across a highly dubious little nest egg, a briefcase he sees smuggled past customs from his vantage point, he takes her out of the shop, even though threatened with violence by the proprietress, and buys her an incredibly expensive fur stole. There was a deep rawness of emotion there, in the act of honouring someone you love.Tilda Swinton is in the movie as well Maloin's wife, I thought her acting was pretty superb in the couple of scenes that she was in. It's a very simple film really. The guilt and fear is very tangible, as is the hopelessness of Maloin's existence.It's a very contemplative sombre film, and the touches are very well done, the sighing barkeep at one point, "Little Vera has had the flu for the third time this year", a child playing football on his own, as opposed to the typical cliché of a whole street gang playing.The only slight problem I had was that the first time we see Maloin playing chess with the barkeep, the chess board is set up incorrectly, "white on the right" folks! It does "break the frame" slightly.
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful: The Slowest Film in History, 10 November 2009 Author: robert-temple-1 from United Kingdom
This film has many extraordinarily interesting qualities, but they are all ruined by the apparent vanity of the director, who appears to be a kind of inverted snob (I watched the interview of him on the DVD). The first shot of the film lasts about five minutes, maybe more, and is interminably boring, moving at slower than a snail's pace. But the director, a Hungarian named Bela Tarr, is determined that we must watch it, perhaps on the theory that anyone lacking the patience to do so is one of the unworthy ones, and does not deserve to see the rest of what he considers his masterpiece. The film defies all normal expectations of a viewing public and does not appear to be made for audiences at all, but rather an example of the director making something to please himself and his two or three best friends. The film is in black and white, and the cinematography is spectacularly good. Tarr gives the impression that he wishes to evoke the same moods as the famous night photos of Paris by Brassai. The film is based upon a novel by Georges Simenon, and the dialogue is in a mixture of French and English, with no Hungarian spoken, as all the Hungarian actors are dubbed in either French or English. It is supposedly set in a French port which has a ferry whose passengers disembark onto a waiting train. We often see them doing this at night, heads bowed, like passengers entering the Afterlife, carrying small valises to last them for Eternity. The film is based so entirely upon images that, if not for its sluggishness, it would qualify as Imagiste in the tradition of Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle ('H.D.'). In his interview, the Director says it is not necessary to hear the dialogue or read the subtitles, as the images speak for themselves. Tarr appears to be inspired by the films of Carl Dreyer, and wishes to sear our sight with ravaged faces, upon which the camera lingers for whole minutes, in the hope that souls will emerge from the eyes and the skin, with the characters' inner depths spilling out like guts on the battlefield. Long, sombre shots where nothing happens are suddenly interspersed with explosions of intense and violent human emotions. Characters who had seemed dead have their electricity turned on and suddenly start shouting and gesticulating. In this melée the chamaeleon-like Tilda Swinton (who is always likely to turn up in the most bizarre settings, and the stranger it is, the more certain we can be that she will be there) has a cameo part, which may have required one or two days's shooting time (or should I say weeks, at Tarr's pace?) Once again, she startles us with her brilliance. Making good use of her fluent French, she plays a desperate, shrieking, terrified harridan of a wife to a man who never speaks and has no money, played by a taciturn Miroslav Krobot, with knitted brow and lips stuck together with glue. The weird music by Mihaly Vig is hauntingly effective, drawing upon its sheer monotony to create a captivating and eerie atmosphere which matches the film to perfection. A girl named Erika Bok plays the daughter of Swinton and Krobot, and is utterly fascinating in her slack-jawed ugliness and simulated stupidity, so that one cannot take one's eyes off her. All of the characters are like figures from a dream, none seems real. Surely these are the people who come to haunt one at night when one has had too much fois gras and sauterne. Can people like Tilda Swinton even exist? I have in other reviews pointed out that she is an extraterrestrial at least, if not someone from another dimension. As for Erika Bok, she cannot possibly exist, she has to be invented. The ultra-weird Istvan Lenart, speaking with the dubbed voice of Edward Fox sounding like a séance-voice of a disembodied spirit reciting the Creed at a black mass, or a corpse enunciating its views from its crypt, outdoes even Swinton in non-human appearance, in the competition to appear unreal and trans-human. He has more folds and wrinkles to his face than a rhinoceros, and has the eyes of a dead man who has lain in his grave for at least twenty years without rotting down properly. This film is like a film full of nocturnal zombies, but the film itself is also like a zombie, since it is clearly just as asleep as a ward full of sedated patients in a lunatic asylum, who have all just had electric shock treatment and forgotten who they are before passing out of consciousness. If Tarr were not so vain, and had been willing to make this film watchable, it could have been an astounding classic. But he is even more irritating than the French director Jacques Rivette, whose 'La Belle Noiseuse' (1991) I had previously believed to be the Number One Most Boring and Interminable Film of All Time. Why does Tarr want to bore us to death and drive us away? Because he is 'above' such things as audiences and viewers? If so, we are so far beneath him that we truly do not deserve him. He should be making films for jungle sloths. What a terrible waste, that a man with such talent should be so perverse in refusing to make 'compromises' that he forgets that films are meant to be seen by people, and not to be kept at home in a locked drawer. 'Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!'
1 out of 3 people found the following review useful: A relatively more accessible film, after a 7-year wait, from Bela Tarr, 3 April 2008 Author: Harry T. Yung (harry_tk_yung@yahoo.com) from Hong Kong
I watched this film in the Hong Kong International Film Festival where director Bela Tarr, in a brief appearance to an audience of close to 1,000 before the film started, graciously thanked them for coming to watch "a tragedy in black and white" while there are so many vying choices to spend the evening. He then pleaded with the audience (indeed he used the word "beg") to, while watching the film, think of the people therein not just as characters in a film but as real people who well deserve our sympathy despite their shortcomings. It's not for me to second guess the master auteur, but I just thought that because some of his admirers focus so much on his inimitable style and awe-inspiring technique, perhaps he wished to remind them that there is certainly a lot more to his work.I confess that I have only watched one of the master's films, "Panelkapcsolat" (Prefab people) (1982), one of his earliest work and the first one in which he used professional actors. Depicting the strife and frustration of a working-class family, that film was a harsh reminder of how unpleasant life could be, whether by destiny or by choice. After his widely acclaimed "Werckmeister harmoniak" (2000), his loyal followers had to wait seven years for another full-length feature, "The man from London", which was received with mixed feelings. Some view the noir crime story as a welcomed attempt to be more accessible to the general audience. Others do not like the master's departure from his social and spiritual (not in a religious sense) agenda.But first of all, the stunning visual is probably still the dominating aspect of this film. Coincidentally, I've very recently watched, belatedly, Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" (1980) and posted an IMDb comment with a summary line "Does Kurosawa really need colour". I am certainly happy that Bela Tarr didn't. The mood created with the marriage of black and white and long shots is absolutely unique, which nobody else can offer. The torturously (or delightfully, depending on the viewer's perspective) long (12 minutes) opening shot from railroad worker Maloin's POV from his monitoring tower will be the talk among Tarr admirers for a long time to come. My particular favourite however is the shot of the protagonist's walk to a store to take his daughter home from an exploitative employer. This one is only a few minutes SHORT, but the camera angle is as close to magical as anything you can find on a movie screen. And one must always remember that there is no editing or cutting in these long shots throughout the film. Come to think of it, the film does not require editing – a good way to cap the budget? As mentioned, "The man from London" has a plot, a simple one. In the opening sequence mentioned above, we see how Maloin (mostly through his own POV) witnesses a murder and fishes out a briefcase with sixty thousand pounds. The story then develops along two lines: investigation by an inspection from London and Maloin's internal struggle and family problem (Maloin's wife is played by Tilda Swinton, whose appearance unfortunately is close to being cameo). There are other supporting characters, including the murderer and his wife.Heeding the director's opening remarks, I did pay attention to the characters. One review I subsequently gleaned, talking about the protagonist's misguided greed, compares him to the character played by Billy Bob Thornton in the Coen Brothers' "The man who wasn't there" (2001). But despite my conscious effort to relate to the characters, I found myself mesmerized by the auteur's style and technique above all.
11 out of 23 people found the following review useful: Slightly disappointing effort from Bela Tarr, 22 October 2007 Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN
Tarr returns after a long absence. Unfortunately, it's not up to par. Well, I should say, I have much of the same problem with this film that I do with all of Tarr's films. I'm certainly not his biggest fan anyway. I love his aesthetic, and would definitely call him a genius just for his visual prowess. It's so extremely original. And he's so good at setting mood, although I should say that the mood of all of his films, at least his later, more well known films, is pretty close to the same. Dark, cold, lonely, the drudgery of life, etc. But as soon as the characters start to speak, I stop paying attention. I find most of the actual words of Tarr's films uninteresting, and, when the characters are talking, I start to realize that I don't find these people that interesting. They may look interesting, as Tarr captures their essence in severe close-ups, but they never say anything interesting. The Man of London unwisely adds plot to the mix. Tarr's earlier films have a wonderful meandering quality, where it feels like he's just capturing people going about their lives. That is true here to an extent, but this one has a pretty clear plot structure, and one that's been told often before: a man finds a pile of money that belongs to crooks, and he pays for it. It's not plot driven by any means, but that skeletal plot is followed, and it makes the film less interesting than Tarr's other films. Also, Tilda Swinton shows up as the protagonist's wife in what amounts to a cameo (she has about five minutes of screen time in this 2 hour and 12 minute film), and it's pretty distracting. There's a cute little nod to Satantango at one point, where people in a bar dance like they did in that behemoth. Also, the little girl with the cat from Satantango shows up as the protagonist's daughter. It's weird, because she looks exactly the same, except she's a woman now. A very, very creepy woman. Who probably still kills cats when nobody's looking.
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