WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (2000)  ***1/2

Reviewed 10/5/01

WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES has been called SÁTÁNTANGÓ-lite by some, which is not an inaccurate description.  HARMONIES certainly wouldn’t look too out of place as one of the segments in SÁTÁNTANGÓ, though it has it’s own separate tone.  The film follows youthful, not-too-bright János around a bleak, rural Hungarian town wrought with strife between the townspeople and the authorities.   A circus comes to town bearing an enormous dead whale and a bizarre “Prince,” but it seems no one is interested except wide-eyed János.

Like SÁTÁNTANGÓ, HARMONIES is made up of extremely long takes usually in the form of tracking shots averaging about 4 minutes each.  That Tarr manages to technically sustain such shots is mind-boggling.  Watching recent Béla Tarr is like watching an artistic still photograph come to life.  Only, Tarr traverses all the spaces seen and unseen in the photo, drawing up yet more stunning pictures out of the nooks and crannies of the one being explored.  Among the stunning set pieces here is János’ almost mystical experience viewing the whale, an uprising of men making their way to and storming a hospital, and János being intercepted by a helicopter.  In one sublime shot, János walks through a lit-area of the town at night; the camera pulls back farther and farther away from him into the darkness, foreshadowing the darkness toward which he is making his way.  Tarr’s eloquent camera movements and striking black and white photography may seem to go against the grain of so much gritty, pessimistic subject matter, yet the artistry itself connotes hope.