Werckmeister Harmonies
Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky, 2000, 145 min

“This mesmeric parable of societal collapse is an enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance. Adapted from a novel by László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies unfolds in an unknown time in an unnamed village, where, one day, a mysterious circus – complete with an enormous stuffed whale and a shadowy, demagogue-like figure known as the Prince – arrives and appears to awaken a kind of madness in the citizens that builds inexorably toward violence. In thirty-nine hypnotic long takes engraved in ghostly black and white, auteur Béla Tarr and codirector-editor Ágnes Hranitzky conjure an apocalyptic vision of dreamlike dread and fathomless beauty.” – Janus Films

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Showing as part of our Close-Up on Béla Tarr programme