Werckmeister Harmonies / Werckmeister harmóniák (2000) [The Criterion Collection, Spine 1215]
Blu-Ray | BDMV | AVC, 1920x1080, ~30.0 Mbps | 2hr 26mn | 45,5 GB
Hungarian: LPCM Audio, 1 ch, 1152 kbps | Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama, Mystery
This mesmeric parable of societal collapse is an enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance. Adapted from a novel by László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies unfolds in an unknown time in an unnamed village, where, one day, a mysterious circus—complete with an enormous stuffed whale and a shadowy, demagogue-like figure known as the Prince—arrives and appears to awaken a kind of madness in the citizens that builds inexorably toward violence. In thirty-nine hypnotic long takes engraved in ghostly black and white, auteur Béla Tarr and codirector-editor Ágnes Hranitzky conjure an apocalyptic vision of dreamlike dread and fathomless beauty.