Satantango

I wish I had the words to explain why this movie worked for me so well. I don’t know how to explain it without sounding pretentious, or like my love for it is performative. I don’t want to smuggly say my new favorite movie of all time is the nonlinear 7 hour black and white Hungarian art house film. But the 7 hour black and white Hungarian art house film is my new favorite movie of all time….. What I can explain is I know this movie created a unique experience I’ve been itching for with movies. This is a well realized movie about a desolate town full of despair, and suffering. It’s a movie about a town of people with no real purpose, no way to advance themselves, who are constantly going behind each other’s backs and  unable to trust each other. Bela Tarr presents an extremely bleak view of humanity that I am 100% there for. At no point in the 7 hour run time was I bored or wanting to look at my phone. I was locked in the entire time, completely captivated by this narrative. It didn’t feel repetitive or drawn out. It had a deliberate pace to it to show how cyclical the destruction of humanity is. There is no hope in this movie. Man left to try and save ourselves constantly sets up governmental structures that will fail. As much as I’m pro-America and think the American Constitution contains the best governmental doctrine the world has seen, I am not naive. One day, America will fall. All empires and societies do. Even though this movie is about a specific society (Hungary after the fall of Communism), the struggles the people in this movie go through speak to a universal struggle all societies and people will go through at some point. I can’t articulate why I find this to be so fascinating, but I know it was. I’ve been yearning to find a film that so perfectly captures my bleak view of humanity and I’ve found it. This is what society looks like separate from Christ. You take Christ out of the picture, and society is left to be the victim of Satan’s Tango. A life without Christ is a life spent constantly working toward a false hope of relief or prosperity, and then falling hard on your face and suffering until you find another false hope to look or work to.  Oh and I also love the medieval synth score. I didn’t know where to put that in this messy review, but I LOVE the main musical theme in this movie. Anyway, life sucks. Everything is pointless and full of despair unless you turn to Christ and serve someone greater than yourself.