Sátántangó

One of the longest films ever made but sheer beautiful images. Highest possible recommendation.

Can’t stop thinking about this movie months after watching. Beautiful and ugly at the same time. Yes its over 7 hours long. You spend that much time binge watching mediocre tv shows, so what’s the difference. You’ve gotta see this.

Pensé que venía con estuche de blu-ray

A cinematic marvel—and for all the moaning condescending reviewers complaining about the running time, I say this: If you can binge watch entire seasons of your favorite television shows...you can damn well watch This dazzling masterpiece by Bela Tarr...You might even find yourself a new fan.... —todd gold

Let me repeat “incredible.”

One of the greatest contemporary films by Bela Tarr, a master film director, based on book by Laszlo Krasznahorkai with score and acting by Vígh Mihály and many other talented actors. 7+ hours long, but worth every minute of its length

You don't see cinema until you see "Satantango". An astonishing piece of art, in wich you can find the composition and sensibility of an artist in every single take. Take your time (it's run is seven hours) and find yourself in the movie.

Over 7 hours long, in Hungarian, with only about 150 edits meaning each shot is up to 15 min long, and ending where an obese doctor boards himself up in his room into complete darkness so he can drink and finish writing his notes, means this is not an easy film. I had to watch this over a few days since even for me this is too large of an undertaking, but I always looked forward to the next segment and was never bored. Granted, I have an incredibly high tolerance for weird stuff like this, but I was curious about why someone would even make a movie like this - it totally goes against any conventional sense to make this film, even in Hungary with some money raised from the cultural board. But I'm glad this movie was made. It's uncompromising not only its sheer endurance, but also in its bleakness, its crushing depression, its total and utter hopelessness, its low opinion of all humans, its ideas of cruelty. For seven hours we're subjected to the fate of a communal town of about a dozen people each of whom represent the worst, most cowardly, drunken, whorish, base, foolish, cruel, idiotic, vain, greedy .. it goes on and on. Nobody in this film is a good person and the only person we never see do anything bad is, I'm pretty sure, Satan himself (played by the film's composer). So then why would this be interesting? Why would watching a herd of cows roam around a deserted farm village for 10 min with no dialogue be appealing? Why would watching a 10 year old girl torture and kill a cat (they don't really kill the cat) who then eats a handful of rat poison to kill herself sound like something worth sitting through? Or how about two military clerks, one dictating and the other typing up doctored notes on the people we just spent 7 hours watching and forming our own opinion of? How about a long shot of an owl? Or horses running around a village square? Rain? Endless rain scene after soaking scene? What's the point? Well the point it to make you feel terrible the way The Princess Bride makes you feel wonderful. This is THE anti-film. It flies in the face of everything you're supposed to do with a film. 10 minutes of a blind man banging a hand-bell and yelling 'The Turks Are Invading?' is not exactly ripping drama. In fact almost everyone would call it pretentious. But that's the point. The film is about that feeling of dread we all have sometimes about the world, ourselves, and each other. And just because these are unpleasant emotions does not mean they are unworthy of exploration because, after all, ignoring them will not make them go away. And the film is a bout a lot more than just soul-crushing depression and a vague sense that the world is either ending or that we're all being watched by a government or God that really just hates us. The film is about oppression and manipulation and how people who are the most vulnerable can be controlled and taken advantage of by even the flimsiest threats of violence or judgment. In that was this is a political film, but from a part of the world that has suffered under so much corruption, ineptitude, oppression, and graft, that it seems, to us, to almost be unreal. Do people actually live like this? Can things really be THIS bad? Yes. Yes they can be. And it's all unpleasant. Nobody likes to be told they are free but then realize the best they can hope for is to wander around from meal to meal, drink to drink, and bed to bed, and hope nobody will make off with your paycheck. Nobody likes to be shown they are, in fact, not free at all and that the world really just doesn't work and that nobody knows what they're doing except for when they're taking advantage of you. This is the sort of film most people should see but never will because it's depressing. Nobody wants this. Nobody wants to be made to feel bad. But isn't that just lying to yourself? How can you know (Satan) is taking advantage of you if you don't know what it means to be taken advantage of? How do we spot oppression and corruption and fear and cruelty before it becomes systemic and it's too late to do anything about it? If we all wishing for the sun in a land that only ever rains, then how do we resist the "promise" of a warmth that doesn't exist?

Qui ci troviamo di fronte ad una delle più grandi opere artistiche di tutti i tempi. Non mi riferisco all'arte cinematografica, ma all'arte in senso lato. Di fronte ad opere come questa le parole sono del tutto inadeguate, così come sarebbe inadeguato un tentativo di descrizione della "Pietà di Michelangelo" a chi non l'avesse mai vista. Questo film va visto e basta. Da coloro - e temo siano molto pochi - che sono disposti a fissare negli occhi la brutalità della vita senza provare l'istinto della fuga, che li porta poi, nella migliore delle ipotesi, a rifugiarsi in quelle droghe leggere che sono i "film panettone", oppure, in quella peggiore, a cercare rifugio nelle droghe pesanti. Un film per animi delicati e sensibili, ma forti al contempo. Non vi è contraddizione tra le due cose. La sola durata del film (7 ore e mezzo) è come una sfida che il regista lancia ai suoi spettatori, quasi come a voler praticare su di essi una sorta di "selezione naturale". Non è certamente un film per tutti. Al pari di Nietzsche (un forte riferimento culturale di Bela Tarr), che si rivolgeva ad una élite di lettori, il regista ungherese sembra volersi rivolgere, con questa opera, ad una élite di spettatori. Dopo la visione di questo film - se vi sarete mostrati degni di appartenere a quella élite - vi sentirete arricchiti nell'animo e vi accorgerete che esso ha scavato come una nicchia dentro di voi. Nulla sarà come prima. Nella vostra vita ci sarà - a partire da quel momento - un'era pre- ed un'era post-visione di Satantango.

The Tarr film were every thing comes to place, what started in Damnation comes to reach perfection here. At almost 7 hours 20 min it is a demanding work but pays off. Hope someone puts the director's next film, my favourite Tarr Werckmeister Harmonies on blu. One of the great masters who retired too early leaving cinema impoverishment by his absence. Aflix is doing a great job making these titles available.

Long film cool

Rarement 7h20 auront si vite passé. C'est normal : Bela Tarr a inventé, il y a déjà 15 ans, le film qui transcende le temps. Satantango ne s'adresse pas à tout le monde ; pas aux accros à la vitesse et au montage syncopé, ça c'est sûr ! N'importe quelle âme un peu contemplative s'immergera immédiatement dans ce noir et blanc d'un temps immémorial, ces plan-séquences qui figent les sens, ces travellings délirants qui imposèrent une nouvelle esthétique cinématographique, et puis cette ambiance absorbante, fascinante ; ces silences interminables qui sont la musique de l'infini, cette façon de scruter, de chercher à saisir l'essence des choses, ces cloches qui tintent perpétuellement au loin comme le carillonnement d'un paradis qui ne viendra pas - ou d'une apocalypse qui s'annonce. Tarkovski n'est jamais bien loin. Longue et pénétrante allégorie sur la chute de l'idéal communiste dans l'Europe de l'est, le chef-d'œuvre de Bela Tarr raconte l'errance d'un groupe d'hommes et de femmes prêts à tout pour suivre le premier faux messie venu. Le scénario n'est pas la clef de voûte de l'œuvre, il tient en quelques lignes. C'est la façon dont Bela Tarr propose, non pas seulement un "univers", mais une cosmogonie sacrée, visuelle et sonore, une façon de réécrire les codes traditionnels du cinéma pour imposer sa vision. Ne pas s'étonner alors de se manger dix minutes sur un troupeau de vaches qui marchent paisiblement, douze minutes sur une beuverie cyclique, ou quinze minutes d'un travelling démentiel sur une petite fille errante jour et nuit sur les sentiers hongrois balayés par l'incessante pluie, à travers les chemins bourbeux de la perdition et de l'innocence sacrifiée... Bela Tarr a également révolutionné l'"antimontage parallèle", cette façon de filmer et de monter une scène de différents points de vue. Ceux qui croyaient (comme moi) que Gus Van Sant avait sorti son style de son chapeau magique risquent fort de revoir leur estime à la baisse, car Elephant a repris ce dernier principe, tout comme Gerry n'est qu'un copié-collé des travellings "tarriens" des personnages secoués par le vent des rues et les déchets qui voltigent, qu'ils soient de dos ou de profil. Les cycles ont aussi leur importance : innombrables sont les scènes qui semblent figées dans une répétition perpétuelle, comme dans un temps recroquevillé sur lui-même d'où plus rien de neuf ne peut plus sortir. Rarissimes sont, aujourd'hui, les artistes qui peuvent avoir une authentique influence sur leurs contemporains. Bela Tarr est de ceux-là. "Satantango" est l'une des expériences cinématographiques les plus imposantes et les plus inoubliables du cinéma moderne.

Der ungarische Autorenfilmer Béla Tarr hat mit seiner 1994 erschienen Literaturverfilmung „Sátántangó“ eines der visionärsten Slow Cinema Kunstwerke der Filmgeschichte geschaffen. Dabei geht sein Werk in etwa so lang wie die durchschnittliche Lesedauer der Vorlage von László Krasznahorkai und erschafft einen wahrhaftig apokalyptischen Film zur Ablehnung des kommunistischen Gedankenguts in Osteuropa. Atemberaubende Montagen, fantastisch photographiert und waghalsig in seinem Produktionsdesign. Eine Erfahrung, die seinesgleichen sucht.