The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)

[Titus]

Has anyone heard anything on this picture? It's the latest by Hungarian master Bela Tarr, but the producer committed suicide in February which led to Tarr shutting down production until they could sort out the financing issues.

Has it been shelved indefinitely?

[Grimfarrow]

Humbert Balsan was the only thing that was holding the project together. When he died, the investors scattered to the four winds immediately (after all, Tarr is notoriously hard to work with). The letter of solidarity that a number of prominent industry leaders sent in support of Bela Tarr unfortunately did nothing to help restart the project.

[iangj]

Humbert Balsan was the only thing that was holding the project together. When he died, the investors scattered to the four winds immediately (after all, Tarr is notoriously hard to work with). The letter of solidarity that a number of prominent industry leaders sent in support of Bela Tarr unfortunately did nothing to help restart the project.

I remember reading at the time (sorry, can't remember where) that Tarr was responsible for the investors scattering to the four winds - there were some serious attempts to refinance this film, but Tarr was exceedingly uncooperative.

[Grimfarrow]

From Screendaily:

TILDA SWINTON joins Tarr's THE MAN FROM LONDON

Hungarian director Bela Tarr spoke to journalists at the 37th Hungarian Film Week in Budapest about the revival of his project, The Man From London, which was stalled last winter after the death of French producer Humbert Balsan.

The film, which is to begin shooting in March, is now a French-German-Hungarian co-production featuring an international cast. Tilda Swinton will star opposite Czech actor Miroslav Krobot. The cast also features British actress Leah Williams and Hungarian stars Janos Derzsi and Istvan Lenart. German cameraman Fred Kelemen is the Director of Photography. Tarr and Laszlo Krasznahorkai wrote the script based on a novel by Georges Simenon.

Co-production companies are T.T. Filmmuhely from the Hungarian side, 13 Productions from France and Von Vietinghoff Filmproduktion from Germany. Tarr said a U.K. producer was dropped from the project when the producer was unable to fulfil the conditions of sale and leaseback and after the U.K. Film Council rejected the proposal.

The film will shoot in Corsica and in Hungary. Tarr and Hungarian producer Gabor Teni said they hoped to conclude shooting this calendar year and take two to three months for post-production work. Tarr said he would like to release the film before Cannes in 2007.

The producers hope the names of Swinton, Simenon and Tarr will help sell the film at the box office. The project does not yet have a global distributor.

The film will be shot in English, French and Hungarian. Support from the French National Film Centre requires that 51% of the dialogue be in French.

Tarr told journalist that he received word of Balsan's suicide two days before he was to begin shooting in Corsica in February 2005. Upon the French producer's death, French bank Coficine froze the disbursement. Using the project's Hungarian funds, plus extra support from Eurimages and ARTE, Tarr shot for nine days on the sets he had built for $2.3m (Euros 2m.)

Tarr returned to Hungary to reorganise. He said was obliged to strike a new deal with Coficine, which held all rights to the film via its contract with Balsan's company, Ognon Pictures.

Tarr has cut the project's budget, originally $5.9m (Euros 5m), by $838,494 (Euros 700,000) and cut the number of shooting days.

[John Cope]

So, does this mean he plans to use what was already shot? I assume it does.

Also, I thought the Swinton casting was old news--why does this article present it as though it isn't?

[John Cope]

A year later, and compelled by miless' comment in the Cannes thread, I managed to find this news, from Cineuropa. It's certainly encouraging to see.

March 1, 2007

Production – Hungary
Last lap for Tarr's Man from London
On a 24-day shoot in Corsica since February 12, Hungarian director Bela Tarr's The Man from London is on the last lap of its adventurous voyage, and may be ready in time for the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

A summary of events: after nine days, production stalled in February 2005 following the death of producer Humbert Balsan. The film – inspired by a Georges Simenon novel – then found itself at the centre of a legal battle, with Ognon Pictures buying rights from French bank Coficiné.
(The article continues below - Commercial information)

However, French producer Paul Saadoun – who worked on Tarr's last film, Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) – put the project back on track and shooting resumed in Hungary in spring of last year, with a cast that includes British actress Tilda Swinton, Czech actor Miroslav Krobot, and Hungary's Janos Derzsi and Istvan Lenart.

The final stage of the shoot, in Bastia, will end on March 10. Editing will be a clear-cut affair according to the film's French producer.

A European co-production between French outfit 13 Production, Hungary's T.T. Filmmuhely (run by Tarr) and Germany's Von Vietinghoff Filmproduktion and Black Forest (formerly CMW Film Company), the €5.3m film included €380,000 in Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC) advances on receipts, €400,000 from Eurimages, €480,000 from Arte France Cinéma (€300,000 in co-production and €180,000 in pre-sales, see interview with Michel Reilhac), support from ZDF, pre-sales from Canal +, as well as backing from the Hungarian Motion Picture Foundation and the Hungarian Minister for Culture.

Dutch outfit Fortissimo is handling international sales.

Fabien Lemercier

That remark about the editing is pretty funny.

[foggy eyes]

Glenn Kenny's swooning Cannes report.

[spencerw]

But there is also a report of booing at the press preview

[Numéro 2]

Well, I was at the premier last night and the booing came from only four or five people. not exactly a crowd. These reports tend to overdo such things. And the applause, even though it wasn't one of the largest at the festival, is not to overheard either. Judging from that, quite a few people took to the film. Myself included. I liked it a lot. It struck med as a darker and more complex film (in terms of both visuals and narrative) than even Werkmeister was. As earlier Tarr it's a work that unfolds at own pace (in this sense it makes a great festival double feature with Reygadas' amazing Stellet Lich, which premiered here to days ago), and the enourmous amount of time one need to spend with the films before the different storylines start to connect (even though they do so only sparesly) is no doubt one of the main reasons why some people left - or got irritated with the film.

[BusterK.]

But there is also a report of booing at the press preview

Well, it's a Tarr flick! What did those people expect, Jump cuts?

[miless]

I don't care what anyone says... this is still my most anticipated film of the year. Especially since I've been on a Tarr high (heehee) ever since seeing Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies in the theatre a few months ago.

[Steven H]

But there is also a report of booing at the press preview

I'd like to meet the person who would deride a film for being "excessively aesthetic" so that I could poke them with a stick, examine their reaction, and determine if they're really a human being.

[spencerw]

But there is also a report of booing at the press preview

I'd like to meet the person who would deride a film for being "excessively aesthetic" so that I could poke them with a stick, examine their reaction, and determine if they're really a human being.

There are links to some other reviews here

I was especially amused by Kirk Honeycutt's idiotic comments, eg: "Bela Tarr seems to feel that imagery will tell his whole story". "Imagery"! Whatever next?

[John Cope]

Yeah, spencerw, I was just about to point that review out myself as it is the epitome of idiocy.

Just about everything he says in that piece and means as a criticism is something I see as a great virtue. Example:

Any action of note takes place offscreen. Characters may yell, but they rarely talk so we might understand. Everyone looks guilty, but of what we do not know.

Hmmm. Could this be...intentional?

I still don't get why shills like this get to see these movies first. I mean, I know why but that doesn't appease me. Our first reviews have to come from people like this? They're writing to an audience of the primarily business minded. Why can't we get some feedback from somebody like Mark Peranson?

[Nothing]

I wouldn't class Mark as someone who overly values aesthetics.

[FilmFanSea]

Manohla Dargis in the Times:

[quote]And Now for Something Completely Meditative

One of the energizing and occasionally enervating consequences of attending an international film festival is that it forces you to face your own impatience. Much commercial cinema moves at a fairly accelerated clip, with anxious camerawork and nanosecond editing that verges on a flicker effect. Confronted with the longer takes and languorous pacing of some of the festival's offerings, viewers hooked on speed cinema rush toward the exit, fall asleep in their seats or try to slow their biorhythms down, way down. Such was the case with “The Man From London,â€

[patrick]

Ugh is this going to have the same weird dubbing as Werckmeister Harmonies?

[tavernier]

Iain Millar on bloomberg.com is not impressed:

Another European director with a weighty reputation has a less convincing offering in competition. Hungarian Bela Tarr's ``The Man From London'' takes all the idiosyncrasies which worked so well in his last full-length film, ``The Werckmeister Harmonies'' (2000) and turns them into self-parody.

Adapted from a George Simenon short story, ``The Man From London'' is a simple tale of a dock railway worker who sees a murder, finds some money and discovers his dormant conscience awakened by the implications of what he's done. Should he keep the money to improve the lot of his family, or should he do the right thing and hand it over to the police?

If Tarr's typically slow pace -- he can hold a still image for minutes on end -- is meant to indicate deep mental processes at work, it fails. The story is not strong enough to sustain these laborious sequences, despite grimly engaging performances from the cast and the undoubted beauty of the black-and-white photography.

Why, though, did he cast actress Tilda Swinton if her Hungarian needs to be (badly) dubbed? And has Tarr ever seen TV's ``The Fast Show''? The salesmen who sell his daughter a fur stole are so similar to the ``Suits You Sir!'' men that it's uncanny.

[Nothing]

sigh, the old "self-parody" trope, how tired.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Saw this at the EIFF last night in the company of the maestro himself no less. An affable Bela beamed at the quality of the first 'true print' to have been viewed and answered a few questions in a perfunctory Q&A afterwards. Nothing revelatory in this session except for short shrift given to an upstart who suggested that the rhythm of the film became irregular at the midpoint. Hungarian hackles rose for a short while before PR took precedence again.

Outstanding camera choreography as you might expect but wearing its austerity openly as in 'Damnation'. It isn't as engulfing as Satantango that had me wanting to pull on wellington boots,drink plum brandy and frolic in mud. I found it the most expressionistic of all the Tarr films I've seen not just in terms of lighting and mis en scene (echoing Lang's 'M' ) but also recalled the haunted central characters in the literature of Buchner and Kaiser.

If I had my wits about me I'd liked to have asked him what effect he thought Tilda Swinton's obvious non Hungarian dialogue being dubbed without any regard to lipsynch would elicit. An emotional truth beyond mere verisimiltude? Brechtian alienation device? Much needed financial clout from the Madame Swinton monicker on the marquee and to hell with the Hungarian elocution lessons?? Well I'll have to wait for some other poor sod to bring it up and risk some Tarr ire.

Personally I sometimes find these rushed post screening Q&A s like a plate of unwanted canapés pushed under your nose after a heavy meal when all you want to do is undo a button or two and kick your shoes off.

[Nothing]

Perhaps the rhythm does become irregular.

Tarr's post-synchronization has always been atrocious. An English-language director would never get away with it, but there we go.

[miless]

Trailer

[chaddoli]

Trailer

That'll really put butts in seats.

[Macintosh]

Any news as to when this can be expected to be released in New York?

[Nothing]

Trailer

That'll really put butts in seats.

In an ideal world, yes.