The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
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kaujot
- Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:28 pm
- Location: Austin
- Contact:
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chaddoli
- Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:41 am
- Location: New York City
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Unless Strand steps in, I doubt you'll see it in the states until maybe a Facets release in the next couple years.
This is the most accessible of Tarr's recent work (with genre staples and all), so I thought it had a chance. But unfortunately it is also not as strong as his last two films. And with every critic saying exactly that, the already less-than-enthused distribs passed.
This is the most accessible of Tarr's recent work (with genre staples and all), so I thought it had a chance. But unfortunately it is also not as strong as his last two films. And with every critic saying exactly that, the already less-than-enthused distribs passed.
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Elephant
- Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 11:17 pm
- Location: Brooklyn
The Museum of Modern Art here in NYC is showing it September 22-28. They note that "This is the North American premiere of the French/English release version, for which the cast dubbed their own voices." I saw both screenings at the New York Film Festival last year, so I'm really interested to see this version and check the film out again. As many have noted, it's not Tarr's best, but it's still a mesmerizing film.
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Barmy
- Joined: Mon May 16, 2005 7:59 pm
The cast dubbed their own voices? Then why are there credits for the English/French dubbers that, erm, don't include the actors? The dubbed version is awful. Watching Tilda in particular go all ACTRESS over her part while some squeaky, badly matched, French emerges from her mouth is squirm-inducing.
The Hungarian version is less distracting, although the bilingualism makes more sense plotwise.
But really on second viewing this is a terrible, flat, empty film. Again, Tilda is a huge distraction, completely at odds in acting style with the rest of the cast. She's amped up to 11.
Tarr's worst film in years. It reminded me of that Bergman parody De Duve.
The Hungarian version is less distracting, although the bilingualism makes more sense plotwise.
But really on second viewing this is a terrible, flat, empty film. Again, Tilda is a huge distraction, completely at odds in acting style with the rest of the cast. She's amped up to 11.
Tarr's worst film in years. It reminded me of that Bergman parody De Duve.
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mattkc
- Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 2:32 pm
No, it's not, it's his best to date. Visually it so clearly pushes forward from his other films, and goes further (in a way that Werckmeister didn't really do). It's really quite a stunning film. To the people who see it, maybe don't worry so much about dubbing and pay less attention to the acting and more to what Tarr is doing with the camera.Barmy wrote:Tarr's worst film in years.
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skuhn8
- Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 8:46 pm
- Location: Chico, CA
I had the limited opportunity to see this with the diverse-language dubbing (as I'm here in Hungary most of the showings have been in Hungarian); in my opinion this was absolutely awful and I can't really see how different follying would've helped. It felt like another Hungarian woe-is-me filmmaker trying to make a Deep-Film-ala-Tarr. It was Tarr paint by numbers. The beauty of his past films for me was found in the 'what's behind the door' probe. In Satantango when the young girl (who is actually one of the bright spots of Man/London) is on her long march the scene burns with whatever unknown quantity is driving her on. I didn't get any of that in his latest; only beautiful shots that cut to other beautiful shots.
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Barmy
- Joined: Mon May 16, 2005 7:59 pm
It doesn't in any way go further than the previous 4 films, which are the only Tarr films I care about. And it's hard to "overlook" the dubbing, as it is some of the worst dubbing I have ever seen (normally dubbing doesn't really bother me). It is very poorly matched and the voices sound like they are coming from offstage.
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mattkc
- Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 2:32 pm
I think there's an emptiness at the heart of most of his work. "The Man From London" felt as empty and inhuman as a chasm, so I can see why some weren't effected by it. Perhaps it helps to not think so much in terms of the other films; it's certainly different. Anyone here who could back me up and make, doubtless, a more thorough case for this than I can?
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Barmy
- Joined: Mon May 16, 2005 7:59 pm
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PimpPanda
- Joined: Fri Feb 22, 2008 2:47 am
I agree with Barmy. I feel that The Man from London is the most visually flat out of his recent work. If anything it unfortunately seemed more like a play on his earlier films than an advancement and at times you knew exactly what Tarr was going to do with the camera. I loved the first forty minutes of this, but the rest I felt was stilted. It didn't have the tremendous formal force of his previous films, either in camera work, construction or mise en scene.
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John Cope
- Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 9:40 pm
- Location: where the simulacrum is true
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
I meant to post on this the last time I saw it awhile back but never got around to it. Now, with the advent of the recently released new edition from AE, I was compelled to make a concentrated effort to collect my thoughts, especially as there is so much here to comment on.
Seeing this again now for the third time (thought the first with the approved soundtrack) confirms for me what I already suspected; that this is indeed absolutely equal in power and authority and accomplishment to Tarr's other more celebrated efforts. This is obviously not the accepted view (see above) and one of the best assessments I've seen yet is that of ptmd on page 2 of this thread. It really gets to the heart of what is going on here. But even this doesn't sufficiently distinguish the accomplishment. The Man From London continues to be seen as overly familiar, too small, self-derivative, negligible. I want to address some of that.
The main complaint even amongst those who appreciate the film seems to be that there are no new insights here, no development on Tarr's particular aesthetic and nothing new brought to the genre Tarr is working in. I disagree on all counts.
As far as the English/French dub goes I have to admit to having some mixed feelings. I understand what was intended and the benefit of it in certain scenes but I do miss the Hungarian as it does at this point feel like an integral element of Tarr's whole enclosed, unified vision. Also, the fact that its presence prevents the narrative from making as much sense actually contributes to and emphasizes the inherent dream like remove and paranoid confusion. The ability to understand the words but to be unable to actively deal with them, to be restricted in your response to them, seems an entirely non-incidental and appropriate situation for a Tarr protag to find himself in, especially here.
And this leads directly I think into the great strengths of this particular picture. Certainly, Tarr's vision is more or less of a piece with his earlier work and expands upon it, reiterating many of his consistent thematic preoccupations. But this does not go far enough and does not do justice to the specific achievement.
The thing that struck me most upon this viewing was the incredible economy of means. There is no detail that is not absolutely essential to the purpose and that purpose is so pared down, so elemental as to be almost sub-primal. Tarr's typical longeurs are not this time at the service of expanding meaning or implication but rather restricting it to the point of suffocation, using his established technique as a device for microscopic, though always artful, examination. This is the first time that I can recall in which the camera movement really does act as an end unto itself but that intention has been critically misread by those who see in it only an act of mannered and rote formula. The distinction exists in the fact that Tarr has become so comfortable with his technique as to allow it to be a contributing factor to the narrative itself. Now of course the dynamic of his style has always had that kind of effect or influence on us in the past but this time it feels designed to be a component part, interacting with or emanating from the psychic space of the protag. In that sense it is similar to what Mendes is doing in Revolutionary Road and probably also needs to be understood in line with what Lynch did in Lost Highway; in which a comprehension could only be arrived by factoring in the notion of manner of presentation; there as here it was never just a style used to comment upon or emphasize details, it was and is integral to the meaning of the piece (i.e. Bill Pullman's character murdered his wife and, in fact, only exists at all as a component part of a filmic presentation of events, established as the ontological basis for all narrative "reality"; trying to work out who people are in relationship to one another beyond that is an exercise in futile energy spent).
Tarr extends out the standard moments of revelation in thriller plotting in an attempt to allow such moments a gravity and weight rarely given but appropriate to them; he takes them seriously in other words. Once again this is similar to what Lynch does in Twin Peaks with the death of Laura Palmer. The standard death that initiates the achingly familiar murder investigation is disrupted through an excessive attention to it, a radical displacement of priorities which provides a renewal for our own engagement and an opportunity to question why we engage at all. Tarr's feature length consideration of minute detail is the opposite of the kind of proplusive distillation of tropes Luhrmann seeks in his similarly misunderstood Australia. But there is a desire on the part of both to disrupt our passive reception of what we think we know so well; to force our active involvement again, whether it be through focused contemplation or the disoriented rush of sudden self-awareness.
The eventual and ultimate result of Tarr's investigation is a recognition of the thorough nature of his favored fatalism. All of his features in one way or another traffic in this theme and to different degrees. Here though, as I intimated above, the idea of fatalism is seen as an end unto itself; or, to be more precise, its legitimacy as an all encompassing perspective is focused upon. Because that is what dictates the whole movement of this piece. Satantango also obviously deals with the notion of a fatal and inescapable eternal return but its wider scope allows for that idea to be inflected with a nuance absent in this film where Tarr conceives of it more as a brute fact deprived of additional dimensions of implication; he subordinates all other details within that pattern scheme.
But consider how well the details function and consolidate to perpetuate this agenda. The details of the plot constrict action and movement: we all know how this story will play out and it does, but with excruciating inevitability. The musical themes and motifs endlessly circle back around to restrict and contract around the actions, as though highlighting foregone conclusions. Tarr's camera is the instrument of this inevitability as well, constantly emphasizing a delimited perspective. The conventions of the genre themselves become bars on the prison door, accent to what becomes Tarr's sole aim, enhanced through relentless repetition. Beyond this, the walls of the old city rising prominently behind and on all sides set the circumference of any action, creating boundaries not just of geographic space but of specific social circumstance and lineage; the unavoidable limitation of a tradition of history captured in place. The backgound sounds of pool balls clinking together or the ticking of Maloin's metronome or the mechanical chopping of the butcher's cleaver all act to further the idea of inevitabilities anchored in place, that kind of intractable element. Even a moment of humor such as the chair dance briefly shown exists primarily to emphasize what is not here otherwise, what has been stripped away and dismissed as frivolous distraction.
This is a world in which any free will is essentially eradicated, only glimmers and hints remain as to untapped possibilities. Maloin can do nothing with his find, it changes nothing; any attempt he makes to defy that is fated to fail. There is no sense of any other real possibility, even from the beginning; he can only act out against the walls of his cage. The money allows him these brief moments of justification though on some level he seems to recognize they are a self-deception, an indicator of impossible avenues of recourse. Miroslav Krobot, for his part, is perhaps the quintessential Tarr actor, with a tightly wound and measured expressivity appropriate to his circumstances and appropriate to the desire by Tarr to lengthen the moment, to hold one note for as long as he can for all it's worth. This is not a performance geared toward a range of responses but rather the one available for someone who perhaps is already well aware of his limits. And this cues the real question as to whether Tarr shares his perspective as completely.
Finally a mention must be made of the ending which seals the deal on Tarr's hopeless scenario. And this is not simply because it's evidence of Tarr's non-Easter position of determined anti-resurrection, anti-redemptive possibility. More to the point, Morrison's actions, in particular his statements to Maloin, suggest not so much that morality is relative and arbitrary but rather, and more distressingly, that it can be willfully built upon and perpetuated by an indifference to any determining factor; that it can be purely self-serving and legitimize fatalism in that way. But this, at least, is one element that is finally not intractable and for the very reason that it can be something else. Such an acknowledgment offers little to those like Mrs. Brown unwittingly drawn in but it does reflect the reality that abject despondency is not the only option, it does not have to be sanctioned and approved. And this is where Tarr's quietly subdued compassion reveals itself. The fact that despondency is the only option left at the end of this film simply makes any extrication, any redemption or resurrection, that much more miraculous as potentialities. But potentialities they remain.
Seeing this again now for the third time (thought the first with the approved soundtrack) confirms for me what I already suspected; that this is indeed absolutely equal in power and authority and accomplishment to Tarr's other more celebrated efforts. This is obviously not the accepted view (see above) and one of the best assessments I've seen yet is that of ptmd on page 2 of this thread. It really gets to the heart of what is going on here. But even this doesn't sufficiently distinguish the accomplishment. The Man From London continues to be seen as overly familiar, too small, self-derivative, negligible. I want to address some of that.
The main complaint even amongst those who appreciate the film seems to be that there are no new insights here, no development on Tarr's particular aesthetic and nothing new brought to the genre Tarr is working in. I disagree on all counts.
As far as the English/French dub goes I have to admit to having some mixed feelings. I understand what was intended and the benefit of it in certain scenes but I do miss the Hungarian as it does at this point feel like an integral element of Tarr's whole enclosed, unified vision. Also, the fact that its presence prevents the narrative from making as much sense actually contributes to and emphasizes the inherent dream like remove and paranoid confusion. The ability to understand the words but to be unable to actively deal with them, to be restricted in your response to them, seems an entirely non-incidental and appropriate situation for a Tarr protag to find himself in, especially here.
And this leads directly I think into the great strengths of this particular picture. Certainly, Tarr's vision is more or less of a piece with his earlier work and expands upon it, reiterating many of his consistent thematic preoccupations. But this does not go far enough and does not do justice to the specific achievement.
The thing that struck me most upon this viewing was the incredible economy of means. There is no detail that is not absolutely essential to the purpose and that purpose is so pared down, so elemental as to be almost sub-primal. Tarr's typical longeurs are not this time at the service of expanding meaning or implication but rather restricting it to the point of suffocation, using his established technique as a device for microscopic, though always artful, examination. This is the first time that I can recall in which the camera movement really does act as an end unto itself but that intention has been critically misread by those who see in it only an act of mannered and rote formula. The distinction exists in the fact that Tarr has become so comfortable with his technique as to allow it to be a contributing factor to the narrative itself. Now of course the dynamic of his style has always had that kind of effect or influence on us in the past but this time it feels designed to be a component part, interacting with or emanating from the psychic space of the protag. In that sense it is similar to what Mendes is doing in Revolutionary Road and probably also needs to be understood in line with what Lynch did in Lost Highway; in which a comprehension could only be arrived by factoring in the notion of manner of presentation; there as here it was never just a style used to comment upon or emphasize details, it was and is integral to the meaning of the piece (i.e. Bill Pullman's character murdered his wife and, in fact, only exists at all as a component part of a filmic presentation of events, established as the ontological basis for all narrative "reality"; trying to work out who people are in relationship to one another beyond that is an exercise in futile energy spent).
Tarr extends out the standard moments of revelation in thriller plotting in an attempt to allow such moments a gravity and weight rarely given but appropriate to them; he takes them seriously in other words. Once again this is similar to what Lynch does in Twin Peaks with the death of Laura Palmer. The standard death that initiates the achingly familiar murder investigation is disrupted through an excessive attention to it, a radical displacement of priorities which provides a renewal for our own engagement and an opportunity to question why we engage at all. Tarr's feature length consideration of minute detail is the opposite of the kind of proplusive distillation of tropes Luhrmann seeks in his similarly misunderstood Australia. But there is a desire on the part of both to disrupt our passive reception of what we think we know so well; to force our active involvement again, whether it be through focused contemplation or the disoriented rush of sudden self-awareness.
The eventual and ultimate result of Tarr's investigation is a recognition of the thorough nature of his favored fatalism. All of his features in one way or another traffic in this theme and to different degrees. Here though, as I intimated above, the idea of fatalism is seen as an end unto itself; or, to be more precise, its legitimacy as an all encompassing perspective is focused upon. Because that is what dictates the whole movement of this piece. Satantango also obviously deals with the notion of a fatal and inescapable eternal return but its wider scope allows for that idea to be inflected with a nuance absent in this film where Tarr conceives of it more as a brute fact deprived of additional dimensions of implication; he subordinates all other details within that pattern scheme.
But consider how well the details function and consolidate to perpetuate this agenda. The details of the plot constrict action and movement: we all know how this story will play out and it does, but with excruciating inevitability. The musical themes and motifs endlessly circle back around to restrict and contract around the actions, as though highlighting foregone conclusions. Tarr's camera is the instrument of this inevitability as well, constantly emphasizing a delimited perspective. The conventions of the genre themselves become bars on the prison door, accent to what becomes Tarr's sole aim, enhanced through relentless repetition. Beyond this, the walls of the old city rising prominently behind and on all sides set the circumference of any action, creating boundaries not just of geographic space but of specific social circumstance and lineage; the unavoidable limitation of a tradition of history captured in place. The backgound sounds of pool balls clinking together or the ticking of Maloin's metronome or the mechanical chopping of the butcher's cleaver all act to further the idea of inevitabilities anchored in place, that kind of intractable element. Even a moment of humor such as the chair dance briefly shown exists primarily to emphasize what is not here otherwise, what has been stripped away and dismissed as frivolous distraction.
This is a world in which any free will is essentially eradicated, only glimmers and hints remain as to untapped possibilities. Maloin can do nothing with his find, it changes nothing; any attempt he makes to defy that is fated to fail. There is no sense of any other real possibility, even from the beginning; he can only act out against the walls of his cage. The money allows him these brief moments of justification though on some level he seems to recognize they are a self-deception, an indicator of impossible avenues of recourse. Miroslav Krobot, for his part, is perhaps the quintessential Tarr actor, with a tightly wound and measured expressivity appropriate to his circumstances and appropriate to the desire by Tarr to lengthen the moment, to hold one note for as long as he can for all it's worth. This is not a performance geared toward a range of responses but rather the one available for someone who perhaps is already well aware of his limits. And this cues the real question as to whether Tarr shares his perspective as completely.
Finally a mention must be made of the ending which seals the deal on Tarr's hopeless scenario. And this is not simply because it's evidence of Tarr's non-Easter position of determined anti-resurrection, anti-redemptive possibility. More to the point, Morrison's actions, in particular his statements to Maloin, suggest not so much that morality is relative and arbitrary but rather, and more distressingly, that it can be willfully built upon and perpetuated by an indifference to any determining factor; that it can be purely self-serving and legitimize fatalism in that way. But this, at least, is one element that is finally not intractable and for the very reason that it can be something else. Such an acknowledgment offers little to those like Mrs. Brown unwittingly drawn in but it does reflect the reality that abject despondency is not the only option, it does not have to be sanctioned and approved. And this is where Tarr's quietly subdued compassion reveals itself. The fact that despondency is the only option left at the end of this film simply makes any extrication, any redemption or resurrection, that much more miraculous as potentialities. But potentialities they remain.
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markhax
- Joined: Sat Oct 20, 2007 9:42 pm
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
I watched the AE release of this last night. I agree with those who found the dubbing distracting, especially the English dubbing. I found this excerpt in Hungarian on YouTube. . What a difference! Unfortunately the source is not given. I would love to get a Hungarian-version DVD of this. Does anyone know of such a release?
Of course the principal three characters in Werckmeister Harmonies, all German, are also dubbed, but it seems better done there.
Of course the principal three characters in Werckmeister Harmonies, all German, are also dubbed, but it seems better done there.
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MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:20 pm
- Location: Worthing
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Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
To be honest, it's swings and roundabouts. The Hungarian version is entirely post-synched too (Miroslav Krobot and Tilda Swinton aren't Hungarian) and the only real beneficiary is István Lenárt (Inspector Morrison). But against that should be offset the fact that certain aspects of the film only make sense if it's in two languages.markhax wrote:I watched the AE release of this last night. I agree with those who found the dubbing distracting, especially the English dubbing. I found this excerpt in Hungarian on YouTube. . What a difference! Unfortunately the source is not given. I would love to get a Hungarian-version DVD of this. Does anyone know of such a release?
That said, it would have been nice if the DVD had offered the Hungarian track as an alternative, given that that was the version people saw in 2007.
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Nothing
- Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 8:04 am
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
Tarr's reliance on (and execution of) post-sync is lazy, imo, and only detracts from the better qualities of his cinema. He is prone to making excuses - how he likes to layer the soundtrack from the ground up; how the complicated nature of the shots would often preclude location recording - but none of this is convincing. He simply needs an inventive sound recordist to match the talents of his DoP, to provide him with clean dialogue tracks that can then be quite satisfactorily worked into the mix without reducing his level of creative control one iota - employing GOOD post-sync techniques when the location tracks didn't quite make the grade (in which circumstances, he would then at least have a guide track on which to model the new recording). Most of us are willing to overlook this drawback, obviously, but I believe it is one of the aspects seriously hindering his wider acceptance / awards / distribution prospects, and an entirely unnecessary one.
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kaujot
- Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:28 pm
- Location: Austin
- Contact:
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
Beautiful clip.markhax wrote:I found this excerpt in Hungarian on YouTube
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Antoine Doinel
- Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:22 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec
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Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
The film is now available on demand from IFC FestivalDirect. Here's the trailer.
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miless
- Joined: Sun Apr 02, 2006 1:45 am
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
woah... does this mean a Tarr film actually has distribution in this country (and not just a handful of prints that toured museums)
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Nothing
- Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 8:04 am
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
Festival Direct is a straight-to-VOD program. It will probably follow on to i-Tunes, but there may never be a DVD or Blu-Ray.
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Tark
- Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 3:44 pm
- Location: Ask me about your savior.
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
The lukewarm reception for this film surprised me. It may never quite reach Werckmeister hospital scene heights, but it is at least good, solid Tarr throughout. There aren't many Tarr's in this world, got to appreciate what we can get.
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criterionsnob
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 5:23 am
- Location: Canada
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
Zip.ca has a listing for an R1 DVD, which appears to be coming on October 27th.
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Yojimbo
- Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:06 pm
- Location: Ireland
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
I want to watch it again: my first impression was that although its not on the same level as 'Satantango', Werckmeister, and 'Damnation', or at least didn't make as immediate, and forceful, an impact as those three, its at least an interesting attempt to be true to the nature of Simenon's psychological thrillersTark wrote:The lukewarm reception for this film surprised me. It may never quite reach Werckmeister hospital scene heights, but it is at least good, solid Tarr throughout. There aren't many Tarr's in this world, got to appreciate what we can get.
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j99
- Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 2:18 pm
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
Nothing wrote:Tarr's reliance on (and execution of) post-sync is lazy, imo, and only detracts from the better qualities of his cinema. He is prone to making excuses - how he likes to layer the soundtrack from the ground up; how the complicated nature of the shots would often preclude location recording - but none of this is convincing. He simply needs an inventive sound recordist to match the talents of his DoP, to provide him with clean dialogue tracks that can then be quite satisfactorily worked into the mix without reducing his level of creative control one iota - employing GOOD post-sync techniques when the location tracks didn't quite make the grade (in which circumstances, he would then at least have a guide track on which to model the new recording). Most of us are willing to overlook this drawback, obviously, but I believe it is one of the aspects seriously hindering his wider acceptance / awards / distribution prospects, and an entirely unnecessary one.
You've really hit the nail on the head. The terrible dubbing does detract from the rest of the film; frankly it's embarrassing and spoils the film. I believe he needs to go back and sort out the soundtrack, and either include an alternate audio track on the AE dvd or remove the original altogether. It's always going to undermine the film, for me at least.
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Brian C
- I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
- Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:58 pm
- Location: Northwest US
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
Pulled directly from the "Better Late Than Never" files, the Facets Cinematheque here in Chicago is showing a 35mm print the week of March 12, apparently via IFC Films. And according to the Facets site, it's a Hungarian print with English subtitles.
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Brian C
- I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
- Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:58 pm
- Location: Northwest US
Re: The Man From London (Bela Tarr, 2007)
Well, the Facets site was incorrect, they weren't actually showing the Hungarian version. I notice their site has since been corrected.
Anyway, I saw this tonight and honestly my immediate reaction is that I didn't understand it at all. It's my first Tarr, and I felt trapped by his technique, which is so stern as to seem dictatorial. My participation as a viewer was simply not required, as over and over again I was forced to focus on people or objects whose importance was not clear to me at the time and is just as baffling to me in retrospect. I did not feel free to make my own observations or connections, instead having every single detail force fed to me, and in the service of a narrative that held no thematic resonance for me at all (with all due respect to John Cope's essay above). If there is an opposite of Tati, this is it. I realize that I don't have much context to place it in, having not seen Tarr's previous films, and perhaps a couple days of reflection will clarify and moderate my initial thoughts. But I found it punishing, frankly.
And the dubbing ... yeah, that's embarrassing. It's not a deal-breaker for me - if I can get around watching Amazon natives speaking continental German in Aguirre, I can get around it here - but it's a patently unnecessary distraction in a film that clearly demands full attention.
Anyway, I saw this tonight and honestly my immediate reaction is that I didn't understand it at all. It's my first Tarr, and I felt trapped by his technique, which is so stern as to seem dictatorial. My participation as a viewer was simply not required, as over and over again I was forced to focus on people or objects whose importance was not clear to me at the time and is just as baffling to me in retrospect. I did not feel free to make my own observations or connections, instead having every single detail force fed to me, and in the service of a narrative that held no thematic resonance for me at all (with all due respect to John Cope's essay above). If there is an opposite of Tati, this is it. I realize that I don't have much context to place it in, having not seen Tarr's previous films, and perhaps a couple days of reflection will clarify and moderate my initial thoughts. But I found it punishing, frankly.
And the dubbing ... yeah, that's embarrassing. It's not a deal-breaker for me - if I can get around watching Amazon natives speaking continental German in Aguirre, I can get around it here - but it's a patently unnecessary distraction in a film that clearly demands full attention.