From: Brooke Holgerson (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Jan 08 2007 - 08:00:49 PST
AT THE HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE
JANUARY 12 - JANUARY 17
MELANCHOLY RESISTANCE: THE RAINY WORLDS OF LÁSZLÓ KRASZNAHORKAI AND BÉLA
TARR**
January 12 (Friday) 6:30 pm
January 17 (Wednesday) 9:15 pm
_Damnation_ (*/Kárhozat/**)__*
*/Directed by /*/Béla Tarr/
/Hungary// 1988, 35mm, b/w, 116 min./
/With Gábor Balogh, György Cserhalmi, Péter Breznyik Berg/
/Hungarian with English subtitles/
A reclusive loner yearns for a married cabaret singer working at the
local Titanic Bar and manages to temporarily remove her husband from the
picture so he can pursue his obsession. /Damnation/'s endless rain and
aura of despair, its stray dogs and dilapidated mining town, recall
Tarkovsky while its rumination on solitude and misery---portrayed at the
inexorably glacial pace of existential anomie---announce Tarr's singular
directorial voice. "The near miracle is that something so compulsively
watchable can be made out of a setting and society that seem so
depressive and petrified" (Jonathan Rosenbaum).
/ /
January 12 (Friday) 8:45 pm
January 17 (Wednesday) 6:30 pm
_Werckmeister Harmonies_ (*/Werckmeister harmóniák/**)__*
*/Directed by /*/Béla Tarr/
/Hungary 2000, 35mm, b/w, 145 min./
/With Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla/
/Hungarian with English subtitles/
In another cut-off town over which the dread of coming apocalypse
hovers, a traveling circus appears. Its main attraction is a stuffed
whale carcass accompanied by a Prince who foments the already incendiary
stirrings of civil unrest. Most mysterious among the villagers attempts
to find harmony is postman Valuska, who organizes patrons in a bar into
a demonstration of the orderly rotations of the planets and later
witnesses a violent mob's attack on a dilapidated hospital. Dark and
devastating, the film may also offer a kind of hope: in its "sensuous
black and whites" and the "stately, calculated movements" of its
camerawork /Werkmeister Harmonies/ suggests "that intelligence and
balance are not completely absent from this world" (Fred Camper).
*Special Presentation - Admission $12 *
January 13 (Saturday) 2 pm
January 14 (Sunday) 2 pm
*_Sátántangó _*
*/Directed by /*/Béla Tarr/
/Hungary// 1994, 35mm, b/w, 450 min./
/With Mihály Vig, Putyi Horváth, László Lugossy/
Taking its structural cues from the form of the tango, Tarr's epic
masterpiece visualizes the devil's dance in circling camera movements
and long takes reminiscent of countryman Miklós Jancsó. Considered one
of the most important and remarkable films of the past few decades, it
is neverthless little seen, and this extraordinary experience of viewing
the film in its entirety is not to be missed. From its riveting opening
shot, which follows a herd of cows wandering and mating its way through
a village, to its hour long study of an aging doctor's (German writer
Peter Berling) drunken trek to the pub to refill his flask,
/ //Sátántangó// /is "sarcastic to the core;" its story of a group of
farmers on a failing collective who await the arrival of a Messiah
"demands to be read as a kind of interim report on where humanity seems
to be lodged---in a quagmire of cowardice, betrayal, self-delusion,
alcoholism, and deceit" (Rosenbaum).__
"Devastating, enthralling for every minute of its seven hours. I'd be
glad to see it every year for the rest of my life" (Susan Sontag).
/There will be two intermissions during which refreshments will be
available. Special admission /*Sátántangó /pass can be used to attend
either Saturday or Sunday's presentations./*
The Harvard Film Archive is located on the lower level of the Carpenter
Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy St. Cambridge
617 495 4700
http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa
Film Admission Prices $8 Regular Admission, $6 Students, Harvard Faculty
and Staff, Senior Citizens
-- Brooke Holgerson Publicity/Outreach Harvard Film Archive 617-496-3211 email suppressed http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/ __________________________________________________________________ For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.