Satantango
•••ONE OF MY TOP FILMS EVER•••
Béla Tarr's Sátántangó is a monumental cinematographic work, dizzying, radical. This 7h30's movie, adapted from László Krasznahorkai's novel, exceeds the storytelling to reach a form of esthetic and philosphical transcendence. Its no longer about "watching a movie", but about living a test, a total immersion in a twilight, nihilistic, pessimistic, apocalyptic world.
Considered as an absolute masterpiece of world filmmaking, Sátántangó is celebrating by filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant or Martin Scorsese, not for his awesome technicity, but for its evocative power, its radical artistic integrity. Its a work that demands, that questions, that pushes to the limit.
For the early first sequence, Sátántangó imposed a new temporallity, foreign, almost hostile. A sequence shot of more than 7min that show cows wandering in a ruin village, under a harsh rainning, in thick mud. “Nothing” is happening, and yet everything is there: desolation, the inexorable slowness of the world, time standing still and weighing down. The bell ring like a curse. Its not simply an introduction, its a rite of passage. If we agree this slowliness, if we agree to let go of the automatisms of the modern spectator, so a trip begin, from which one does not return unscathed. As Béla Tarr says, the introduction is a pact between the filmmaker and the viewer, a pact that allow viewer to know if he wants to continue or not and if he's ready to go through an unforgettable journey.
The scene takes place in a rural post-communism Hungary, just after the fall of the communist regime in 1989. This Hungary is dilapidated, ghostly and dehumanized. Right in the middle of social realism movement, Tarr shows a community on the brink of collapse, eaten away by boredom, alcohol, and lies. There is a dull metaphysical anxiety, a total loss of bearings.
The fragmented narrative structure, which revisits the same events from different points of view, creates a downward spiral, as if the story were devouring itself, unable to move forward. We are never "in" a story, but in a space-time. This relationship that Tarr grants to time in these works is similar to that of Tarkovsky. In Tarkovsky's work, the past, present, and future often coexist in the same image, as in The Mirror, where childhood memories, dreams, archives, and images of the present are intertwined.
And yet, despite his darkness, Sátántangó is stunningly beautiful. A harsh, mineral, timeless beauty. The black and white, with its astonishing pictorial precision, gives each shot the power of a painting: the rain pounding against the windows, the mud clogging the feet, the faces marked by despair, everything is filmed with a slowness that borders on the sacred.There is no facile music, no nervous editing, but camera movements so fluid, so masterful.
Personally, I can say without hesitation that Sátántangó is the greatest film I have ever seen (I'll probably need a second viewing to confirm my claim). It's a work that overwhelmed me, moved me, exhausted me, but above all, transformed me.It's a film that made me understand what cinema can be: not entertainment, but an absolute, brutal, naked mirror of the human condition. It's a work I lived, not simply watched. A rare emotional and existential experience.Sátántangó is not forgotten. It leaves a profound mark. It remains there, lurking in a corner of the memory, in the way we subsequently look at the world. It makes us more attentive, more patient, perhaps more human.It's a demanding film, yes, but it gives infinitely more than it asks. You simply have to be willing to let go, to renounce narrative comfort, to surrender to this slow descent into mud and silence.And then, you discover something rare, priceless: a profound and sublime look at human tragedy.For me, Sátántangó is the best cinematic experience that ever existed. No other film has possessed me as much. It is an unparalleled peak. The film of my life, a total masterpiece.
10/10