The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)

[pauling]

Actually, Nothing, I would compare Antonioni to Tarr and not for the simple fact that they've both made several masterpieces in their time. I'll agree that Tarr hasn't made as many "great" films Antonioni...yet. Though, I am curious which film you rate of Tarr's as great.

[justeleblanc]

Damnation and Werckmeister are great. I haven't scheduled Satantango yet, and I'm almost waiting for a theatrical showing.

Still, I feel like L'avventura was almost an innovation. Tarr's contributing less in terms of that. Looking at his films in terms of craftsmanship then I would agree, but for me his way of looking at he world is kinda derivative.... even so of David Lynch.

[miless]

I have to disagree with you here. He's made three great films, two of them are brilliant (Sátántangó and Werckmeister) and Damnation is really close.

Well, you know... When making favourable comparisons to the greatest director of the 20th century I believe the word 'great' has to mean something. Tarr is far more reminiscent of Angelopoulos, anyhow, although he lacks the same level of historical and political insight.

true, but I don't see how Tarr "lacking the same level of historical and political insight" impairs Tarr's films... his films aren't historical portrayals of any particular society... they are Hungarian, but they belong more to the world Tarr creates. and his politics are always self-contained within the films, as if each one is a separate medieval town with it's own little political world with little to no contact with the outside world.

[John Cope]

I am curious which film you rate of Tarr's as great.

I suspect it must be Werckmeister as I remember that he seemed surprisingly cool to Satantango. FWIW, I personally hold Almanac of Fall just as dear as the following films, even if it features a less refined aesthetic. Actually, scratch that, I don't think it does. I think it features a different aesthetic. Different means for different ends.

I have to disagree with you here. He's made three great films, two of them are brilliant (Sátántangó and Werckmeister) and Damnation is really close.

Well, you know... When making favourable comparisons to the greatest director of the 20th century I believe the word 'great' has to mean something. Tarr is far more reminiscent of Angelopoulos, anyhow, although he lacks the same level of historical and political insight.

true, but I don't see how Tarr "lacking the same level of historical and political insight" impairs Tarr's films... his films aren't historical portrayals of any particular society... they are Hungarian, but they belong more to the world Tarr creates. and his politics are always self-contained within the films, as if each one is a separate medieval town with it's own little political world with little to no contact with the outside world.

Once again, as with Syndromes and a Century, Nothing seems intent to fault a work for not being primarily political or social/historical. Of course, these aspects of a work can emerge in a multitude of ways; they are not beholden to one specific methodology. They don't have to be overtly expressed. I tend to feel art is more effective when it is less overtly polemical, when that's subsumed more into the form. As I said, though, that doesn't mean those dimensions have to disappear. Any good work resonates on a multitude of levels. All great work certainly does. So, I agree with you miless. Tarr has a larger purview than what Nothing is giving him credit for. Angelopoulos, for his part, is also not defined by or reduced to the strictly political. His later films find ways to extend the boundaries of his considerations from the micro to the macro, as with Tarr. I'll have to look again at what Nothing said about Satantango as I'm more surprised upon reflection that he wouldn't respond best to this Tarr, though I imagine the political allegory element of Werckmeister may have seemed more satisfying.

It's a bit similar to Whit Stillman and his relationship to Eric Rohmer.

Ouch. That's unfair.
Whit Stillman is a director of stilted, pretentious films.

Oh come on. Now who's being unfair.

[pauling]

I'm with you on Almanac of Fall, John. It is a different film from the ones that followed but I find it interesting that Tarr is sort of finding his voice and aesthetic: switching from extreme close-ups of faces to more of an outsider perspective surveying the landscape. He's never lost his ability to focus on faces, though. The man has an amazing eye for the human face. Also, speaking of politics, Tarr seems to be moving away from the overtly political in his films to the more allegorical in Almanac.
I believe L'avventura is an amazing film where Antonioni created a new film language. I had to watch it several times and listen to the fantastic Youngblood dvd commentary to finally understand and I'm glad that my persistance was rewarded. This is sort of why I think we need to have more exposure to Tarr's films. I think they beg multiple viewings and that's just simply not possible considering his films screen quite rarely and his dvd output, at least in region one, has been completely mishandled. Back to Man From London, I enjoyed parts of it but there were others that simply didn't work for me but I would like the opportunity to revisit it again so I can formulate my thoughts a little better. It's really great to see there's more Tarr fans out there.

[Nothing]

Satantango.

I've yet to see a bad film from Tarr. Whilst he does occasionally seem to be going for a mood/aesthetic + broadly-painted allegory and little else, his essential view of the human condition always rings true (unlike the recent atrocity from Weerasethakul). In a way, the shot/scene of the peasants endlessly singing/drinking in Santantango is the epitome of Tarr's art - it goes on and on, and it's not saying anything by the 10th minute that it wasn't saying in the 1st except there's something in the very elongation of the moment, combined with the drunken bravura of the technique, that draws you in and makes you feel something deep down in your gut.

[sidehacker]

Someone needs to step up to take Wellspring's place, though...

Yeah, Wellspring, Strand, et al are really despicable. It's nice that they may bring some unknown films to R1 but when it's people like Tsai, they need to put some effort in to it. Hopefully Criterion can get their hands on The Wayward Cloud....

[portnoy]

Uh... Wellspring doesn't exist anymore. And what they were doing (and what Strand is doing still now) was an unbelievable service to American filmgoers - the notion that what they're doing is 'despicable' is fucking baffling and offensive to me. The fact is, these companies hang on by the skin of their teeth trying to distribute extremely challenging, difficult to market foreign-language films, and they don't have massive budgets with which to do that - these distributors do everything they can in order to get their films out to as large a market as they can, but it's an uphill battle considering audience tastes and media coverage. What Strand does is an invaluable gift to us - if you disagree, please found your own distribution group and do better.

[domino harvey]

Such an eighth-grade reaction, "If you can't do it, don't complain." Like, I'm pretty sure the guy in the wheelchair can still judge the 300-meter dash. These companies are in fact not doing a service to viewers by buying R1 rights to titles and then producing inferior products while ensuring that no one else can release a worthy edition.

[portnoy]

If Strand weren't buying up the US rights to Weerasethakul's films, no one else would. Same with Bahman Ghobadi's Half Moon. Same with The Edge of Heaven. In all these cases, US theatrical distribution was or continues to be heavily delayed because international distributors were trying to get more lucrative deals from better-funded companies. They weren't getting them. They didn't come through. The idea that Sony Classics or some other company better-funded to distribute these movies would have snatched up The Intruder if only WELLSPRING hadn't come along and offered Ognon Films such a lucrative offer is ludicrous.

Further, the issue is not whether the runner is good - it's whether or not the guy in the wheelchair is even afforded the opportunity to see the race.

edited to add:

By the way, I'm not being coy here - I'd love it if the above poster took me up on my challenge and started a distribution company that released high-quality DVDs of recent foreign art films. But you can't even begin to list how many externalities there are to take into consideration with the production of a DVD, especially when you're on a tight budget. There are certain market limits on a product like SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY or THE MAN FROM LONDON (to get this thread back to its original topic) - it's hard to justify an expensive progressive transfer on a movie that only sold ~2,500 tickets in its American box office run, or on a difficult, bleak-minded Hungarian filmmaker who's NEVER had a proper theatrical release in the United States.

No one sitting around at Strand or Kino WANTS to release bad, cheap DVDs (they're not the Roan group or Alpha video) - they just don't have the financial resources to do better in a lot of cases, and by providing us with the films at all, even in a compromised state, they're doing us a favor.

Not every company can afford to be Criterion, because not every company has the market Criterion has.

edited to correct (lower) the number of tickets sold to Syndromes and a Century in the US

[Oedipax]

And just to clarify, my comment about Wellspring was a lament about their absence, not a call for their demise. Their DVDs weren't Criterion caliber, but they were a hell of a lot better than the junk Facets puts out routinely. Strand I respect a great deal, but is it THAT difficult to release a progressive transfer of a film that's no more than a couple years old? I have no idea what the budgetary ramifications of that are, in terms of DVD production, but could it really be that difficult? Is it more a matter of what the distributor makes available? Burned-in subs, another annoyance... I can understand the necessity to skimp on older films that haven't been restored, where elements are more scarce and in rougher shape, but why should a film that was finished just a couple years ago even go out into the world as an interlace transfer, unless it's a broadcast sale or something?

[portnoy]

If Strand is lucky, whoever holds the worldwide rights will pay for a high-quality transfer for international video distribution. If not, they'll get a shitty broadcast transfer on a BetaSP and be told to bum a fuck if they want something better. If they even have access to the materials they would need to produce their own in-house progressive transfer, especially if they want someone monitoring it for things like, say, color and light quality, it costs tens of thousands of dollars - considering SYNDROMES' box office gross (~$16,000), for example, you can see where this becomes an issue.

Look, I'm bummed out that we aren't getting good DVDs of these movies too, but the best thing we can do is support and promote a film culture that allows these movies to be distributed in the first place, and to get out the good word to people about these movies. If you could convince more than 200 people to come out to see SATANTANGO play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (which no one was able to do last year), then you may be able to convince a distributor to plunk down some of its cash on giving THE MAN FROM LONDON a theatrical release. If we can help to promote and maintain a market for these films, these films will get distributed, and they'll get distributed in higher-quality DVD releases.

[chaddoli]

If you could convince more than 200 people to come out to see SATANTANGO play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (which no one was able to do last year)

Points well taken but that screening had a full house.

[portnoy]

If you could convince more than 200 people to come out to see SATANTANGO play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (which no one was able to do last year)

Points well taken but that screening had a full house.

Dude, I was there - that screening sold at 3/4 of capacity, and it's not a huge screen.

[sidehacker]

I do respect that Strand for the films they do bring to the West, but it seems like an empty gesture especially if there's superior R2 discs out there. I mean, if you are looking into purchasing a film by Weerasethakul then, let's be honest, there's a good chance you own a region-free DVD player. Have you seen Strand's release of Suzhou River? A film made in 2000 and somehow, they were able to bleech out all the rich colors and make it look like a vhs from the 90s.

[Nothing]

is it THAT difficult to release a progressive transfer of a film that's no more than a couple years old?

The fault here must fall on the production company as they are the ones providing the master in such cases. It's not as if the budget for Syndromes was so small that they couldn't have afforded an HD transfer. Burned-in subs, on the other hand, are the fault of the distributor. They should insist upon a textless master (there will be one in existence and their access to it should be written into their contract) and creating a DVD subtitle stream from English subtitles timings that already exist for the print master isn't so difficult or expensive. But... anyway, let's not slip this particular slice of bourgeois confectionary into the Tarr thread...

[Grimfarrow]

So I just saw the new version of THE MAN FROM LONDON, which had its debut in Rotterdam earlier this year...

And it was magnificent. I cannot express how much better this new version is from the previous ones.

The last time I saw the film on the big screen was at the Red Carpet Premiere in Cannes. But boy this new version, which is now the "final" version of the film (the old Cannes version will no longer exist), is quantitatively better. Anyone who saw it pre-Rotterdam (ie. Jan 2008) should really go see it again. You will not regret it.

What is different?

The most obvious is the dub - the film is now in English and French. Why? Because Bela Tarr didn't have time to finish the film for Cannes, so he hastily dubbed the film into Hungarian, which he always hated. He always intended for the film to be in English and French. After all, the film took place in Corsica, and has a guy from London. Tilda Swinton and Miroslav Krobot now use their real voices in the film (she speaks in French, so does he). Plus, in Hungarian some plot points were lost, as it was the intention that some characters do not understand each other, since some were French and some were British. In Hungarian that point was moot.

The new print also looks better than ever. I thought that the print in Cannes was too sharp - the blacks and whites had too much contrast. The new print is much more beautiful.

Soundtrack has also been corrected - the repetitive music is now kept more to the background, while sound effects are amplified.

Bela told me I must see this new version, and I'm so happy I did. I urge everyone to do so as well. It really elevated my opinion of the film far beyond my first impressions.

[foggy eyes]

Thanks for that report, Grimfarrow - I can't wait, but am now even more gutted that I missed seeing the "old" version at EIFF last summer. Artificial Eye recently informed me that they have pushed the UK release of London back to the end of the year (they also have Time and Winds at the moment, but no release date is set for that either).

[miless]

I hope this means that the film will find a US distributor.

[Grimfarrow]

The US market is so unfriendly to foreign (and non-foreign) auteurist films nowadays that chances of that happening is very slim.

[miless]

true, but I was hoping that Tilda Swinton winning an academy award (and no longer having her dubbed) would convince some small distribution company to import it (maybe even Tartan, the way they do with Reygadas pictures).

[Grimfarrow]

Problem is, the reaction coming out from Cannes was mixed...if this was the version shown maybe the result would be different. The film really needs some critical support, and in time I think it will gain more and more support.

Plus Tilda is still dubbed - I think she was speaking in English in the film. But she speaks French in the soundtrack (which is more correct, as she is supposed to play a local Corsican).

[Adam]

I saw the same version in LA - indeed, the same print, which went from LA to Hong Kong according to teh introduction. nAs far as I could tell, everyone was dubbed. The credits even listed who dubbed whom, and Swinton was among those dubbed by another person. There were some noteworthy dubbers. I remember that Edward Fox did the voice of the police inspector from London. I can't remember who did the voices of Swinton and her husband in the film. But as mentioned, I think the dual languages is one key element of the film, and I can easily understand how dubbing everyone into the same language would mar the film. I never saw anything that indicated that this was supposed to be Corsica (indeed, I just thought Marseilles to myself while watching, but I've never been to either, and I'm sure Marseilles is a much large and more industrial port), but I think nothing in the film required it to be a real place. Were the exteriors actually filmed in Corsica? But it was important that it was a French-speaking port community, and that the criminal and the inspector came from a country that spoke another language.

Not sure how to do a spoiler alert (with hidden text), so a warning that mild one is coming. I think an interesting issue is whether what is basically a simple genre film can be made in the style of a film done by Bela Tarr. (I'm still debating this to myself.) The opening sequence for example worked for me because we are inhabiting the space & vision of the lead character as the criminal McGuffin activities go on at the ship. The long take of the face of the wife of the criminal as the inspector talks with her worked quite beautifully as well. But other scenes - such as the Satantango moment in the bar - just seemed out of place, and indeed, that scene (a man dancing with a chair, the other balancing food on his forehead) drew significant laughs from the audience. To me it was an amusing reference but also seemed out of place.

Anyway, more to think about...

[Grimfarrow]

No, Swinton was her own voice. Her name is not in the list of dubbing credits. I forgot about Miroslav - will have to find out.

Yes, the whole film was shot in Corsica. Not just the exteriors. The ligthouse and ship and the train was all a set built by Tarr BTW.

The final shot of the film rests on the only one truly innocent, then fade to white btw. Otherwise the film usually fades to black.

[kaujot]

Any news on this? I can assume by its being on Page 4 or 5 of this forum that no, there isn't, but I just thought I'd check.