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Might as well get the thread started since this film is now (near?) complete, and even the third Batman has its own thread. It is apparently 150 minutes and is confirmed to debut at the Berlin Film Festival.

There isn't a lot of news about it yet, other than above and the general plot. I am very much looking forward to this (as I have mentioned in the Malick/Tree of Life thread). I was somewhat disappointed by The Man from London, and if this is to be Tarr's last film before he dedicates himself to opening his new film school, I really hope he goes out with a bang.

plot

Here is some basic information, and a still:

Trailer. Of a sort anyway.

Excellent!

Assuming he is accurate about the 30 takes, that is about a 5 minute average per shot.

I consider Werckmeister Harmonies to be the best film of the last 20 years, so the only thing really tempering my excitement about this is the wait to actually seeing it. I hope it does a good fest run in the US.

Berlin film festival's Golden Bear race goes to the wire

Andrew Pulver wrote:The race for one of the film festival world's most prestigious awards is hotting up dramatically, ahead of the results declaration on Saturday. The Golden Bear, the prize for the best film at the Berlin film festival, is comparable in status to Cannes's Golden Palm and Venice's Golden Lion, and the suggestion is that, out of the 16 films originally selected to compete, two are neck and neck: the Iranian film Nader And Simin, a Separation, and the Hungarian entrant, The Turin Horse.

Since this is Tarr's last film, I am really disappointed that no place in NYC is doing a retrospective or showing a few of his films in the lead up to this film's eventual release.

aox wrote:Since this is Tarr's last film, I am really disappointed that no place in NYC is doing a retrospective or showing a few of his films in the lead up to this film's eventual release.

I do not believe that there has ever been a Bela Tarr retrospective within the English speaking world for very obvious commercial reasons. My personal concern is that the distribution of this film will be limited to Southern England as was the case with The Man From London! EDIT: It appears that confirmation for the 2001 retrospective was hidden in plain-sight within the pages of my easily accessible copy of the April 2001 edition of Sight And Sound! I should really fact-check before venturing future depressive opinions.

ambrose wrote:

aox wrote:Since this is Tarr's last film, I am really disappointed that no place in NYC is doing a retrospective or showing a few of his films in the lead up to this film's eventual release.

I do not believe that there has ever been a Bela Tarr retrospective within the English speaking world for very obvious commercial reasons. My personal concern is that the distribution of this film will be limited to Southern England as was the case with The Man From London!

Man from London was shownwith Hungarian dialogue at the Edinburgh film festival with Tarr in attendance and later did the Edinburgh/Glasgow circuit with the dubbed soundtrack so it wasn't limited to Southern England - unless you're specifically referring to England rather than Britain.

ambrose wrote:I do not believe that there has ever been a Bela Tarr retrospective within the English speaking world for very obvious commercial reasons.

damn. I really want to see The Werckmeister Harmonies on the big screen. My girlfriend has never seen any Tarr, and I would love her to attend WH with me. Though I fell in love with it (the film, not the presentation), I really don't want to show her the Facets disc.

The best I ever see in the NYC is every few years someone (e.g. MOMA) will show Satantango.

ambrose wrote:I do not believe that there has ever been a Bela Tarr retrospective within the English speaking world for very obvious commercial reasons.

London's National Film Theatre hosted a complete retrospective in March 2001.

There was a Regis Dialogue (and retrospective) with Béla Tarr at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 2007 which was well-attended.

MichaelB wrote:

ambrose wrote:I do not believe that there has ever been a Bela Tarr retrospective within the English speaking world for very obvious commercial reasons.

London's National Film Theatre hosted a complete retrospective in March 2001.

10 years have passed, fingers crossed for another soon.

Nick James covers Berlin and The Turin Horse for the Sunday papers and thinks it may be Tarr's finest.

Robert Koehler on The Turin Horse.

Press Conference.

The Turin Horse Sells in 23 Countries.

International sales company Films Boutique (http://www.filmsboutique.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) said the theatrical and DVD rights of the black and white art house movie were acquired by distributors from Belgium, South-Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Greece, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Italy, Russia, Portugal and others. At the end of the Berlinale, Films Boutique was still in negotiations with potential partners from the United States, the Baltic countries, Mexico and Spain.

Béla Tarr on The Turin Horse

You signed a declaration by Hungarian filmmakers criticising the reorganisation of the Hungarian film funding system. Could you tell us something about the background of the problem?

The Hungarian government is centralising the film fund. Until now, we have had a motion picture association funded by the state that worked very democratically: there was a regulated application process that anyone could enter. Now, they are assigning a film delegate of the Hungarian government who will control the film fund, and we are worried about the fact that the pluralistic system we have had is being restructured. Since the media law that was passed recently, there is a shadow resting over the Hungarian cultural life that makes us filmmakers very worried.

aox wrote:Excellent!

Assuming he is accurate about the 30 takes, that is about a 5 minute average per shot.

It sounds promising but I think I still owe 'The Man From London' another look before making my final decision on it.

Tarr's last film? ... Any idea when the death rattle will reach the UK?

Grand Illusion wrote:I consider Werckmeister Harmonies to be the best film of the last 20 years

I agree - it's fantastic.

Is it just me or does the general plot of this movie sound a tiny bit like Jeanne Dielman? Showing the repetitious nature of existence and putting us in the place of the lonely, isolated characters by taking us through there tedious routines each day. Even the title cards between days saying "day one," "day two" etc. sound similar. The only other Tarr movie I have seen is Werckmeister Harmonies. With that one the long takes seemed to instill a sense of awe in the viewer (or at least it did for me.)But with this the aim is apparently more to make the viewer feel the tedium and boredom of the main characters lives. This is the general impression I got from someone I know who was at the film festival. He said that although the film is Tarr's most important one (whatever that means), it's an endurance test even for the most ardent Tarr fan. Someone posted his impression of the movie and said the same thing. He described people screaming "for the love of God!" when the fourth and fifth day titles came up, and that a third of the audience walked out.

Still i'm very excited for it and am also interested to hear people's reactions to what is apparently Tarr's style taken to the extreme.

It's hard to imagine a two and a half hour film being more of an "endurance test" than Satantango, which was more than three times that length, but I can't wait to find out for myself.

Plus, statistically speaking I think it's a certainty that a Tarr film will make a sizeable portion of any large enough audience walk out.

Anyway, I'm eagerly awaiting this one. I loved The Man From London, despite its flaws, and am curious whether Tarr has gone further in that sort of direction. I know many think it was a derivative, boring work or too reminiscent of past Tarr but I thought the opposite -- it felt noticeably different from his previous three films, stylistically going even further and further toward what I could only term (to give a musical analogy) drone cinema. The black comedy of Satantango and the hopeful romanticist strain of Werckmeister which gave those films a little "light" seemed to be mostly absent, giving way to a very dark, almost fatalist vision. From all accounts, it sounds like this one is following suite, but I'll have to wait and see.

I mean endurence test in that the act of watching what's there is so difficult. In other words if you took out 2 hors of Satantango and 2 hours of Turin Horse, the Turin Horse would be much more punishing in it's uncompromising minimilism and total hopeless bleakness.

So yeah from what i've heard from people and reviews it's like London but even way more in that direction (drone cinema as you put it). One review said that the first shot being a 20 tracking shot of the carriage going along a road, which the reviewer said was "the most action packed scene in the film." The rest is pretty much identicle days of them doing the same chores over and over shown in real time, with almost no dialauge to speak of (hence the Jeanne Dielman analogy). So it seems for his last film Tarr has dicided to make a film that was him at his purest. Abandoning pretty much all plot, charecter, and sembelance of humor or hope. Instead the film shows Tarr in his most distilled and uncomprimising form.

In 2007 when "The Man From London" came out Tarr was in an interview and said that he feels he is making the smae film over and over again, but each time trying to be better, realer, harsher, and more uncomprimising. He also said in another interview that this has to be his last film. When asked why he responded (and i'm paraphrasing) "when you see it you will see why). I think it's maybe because he finally made the movie he has always wanted to make and that with each previous film he had been trying to get to which is why it has to be his last, because he has achieved his goal.

But, it's rather pointless for me to blindly speculate on what some people have said having not seen it myself. Cannes starts May 11 and i'm sure it will be there. Then maybe we can hear more about, and maybe some people on this forum will be there and will post their thoughts. so we'll just have to wait until then I guess.

oh yeah wrote: it felt noticeably different from his previous three films

One of the reasons I didn't really like it. It came off as someone mimicking Tarr's style by filming a regular film and then realizing they have to also include some long take here and there. And the long takes themselves felt self-conscious almost. The film didn't feel 'natural' to me.

Just my opinion.

Peter-H wrote: Cannes starts May 11 and i'm sure it will be there. Then maybe we can hear more about, and maybe some people on this forum will be there and will post their thoughts. so we'll just have to wait until then I guess.

If it was in Berlin, it won't be at Cannes (not the festival, at any rate).

Why won't it be at Cannes if it was in Berlin?