lovejuice
02-05-2008, 09:30 PM
http://www.trendesombras.com/num2/imagenes/werk001.jpg
Pardon me if I make too many comparisons to Krasznahorkai’s The Melancholy of Resistance. To begin with I pick this film specifically because I want to see how well the novel was translated onto the screen.
And very well indeed.
I won’t go into plot details since I believe a number of you have already watched the movie. Allow me to state different plot points. Most important is Janos’s depiction. In the novel he is an odd ball, a clown who is tolerated and laughed at. His cosmological lesson is nothing but a distraction between pints of beer. Tarr’s Janos is a more respectable character. This change is understandable since he is clearly the hero of the movie. Krasznahorkai on the other hand constantly changes the perspective among four characters.
Janos’s mother is also absent. Albeit her role being peripheral, she is the one who sets tone, and her fate underlines the tragedy of the situation.
Aside from these, the movie is faithful.
Haven’t watched anything by Bela Tarr. This is actually a pleasant surprise. It’s different from highly regarded work by Europen masters. This is not Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Godard, Sokurov, or Haneke. Tarr’s sensibility, I find, is more in tune with Hollywood old master. A more contemplative version of Welles perhaps. In a way, I like it. Krasznahorkai’s novel is very narrative. A lot are going on. A more “artsy” interpretation will never do justice to the book.
The Melancholy of Resistance is, in a nutshell, a human tragedy. It is within our nature to yearn and strive for order within this post-modernistic world of disorder. And we will settle down on anything that bears a resemblance to order even if it is in fact a chaos. My favorite scene is when Tarr captures the mob and the faces of individuals within. Those expressions are hard to crack. Are they determining faces of someone who realize they are but tools to serve bigger purpose? Are they elated or sad because they lose themselves as individuals? The mob is the very picture of order before it turns into ugly chaos in the next hospital-raiding scene.
A friend of mine who is not so fond of the director jokingly says that “Bela Tarr makes a movie about how great Bela Tarr is.” I somewhat agree. Werckmeister Harmonies is among the more visually arresting films I’ve seen. Camera movement within long shots -- perhaps corresponded to Krasznahorkai’s no-paragraph style -- is poetical. The interplay between light and shadow creates a breath-taking other-worldly atmosphere.
The movie shares some minor shortcoming with the novel such as Eszter’s rambling about music theory. Tarr cuts short those rambling and makes it mercifully contained. (To give Krasznahorkai's credit, this rambling makes more sense in the novel.) Besides both the book and the movie are immense experiences.
Pardon me if I make too many comparisons to Krasznahorkai’s The Melancholy of Resistance. To begin with I pick this film specifically because I want to see how well the novel was translated onto the screen.
And very well indeed.
I won’t go into plot details since I believe a number of you have already watched the movie. Allow me to state different plot points. Most important is Janos’s depiction. In the novel he is an odd ball, a clown who is tolerated and laughed at. His cosmological lesson is nothing but a distraction between pints of beer. Tarr’s Janos is a more respectable character. This change is understandable since he is clearly the hero of the movie. Krasznahorkai on the other hand constantly changes the perspective among four characters.
Janos’s mother is also absent. Albeit her role being peripheral, she is the one who sets tone, and her fate underlines the tragedy of the situation.
Aside from these, the movie is faithful.
Haven’t watched anything by Bela Tarr. This is actually a pleasant surprise. It’s different from highly regarded work by Europen masters. This is not Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Godard, Sokurov, or Haneke. Tarr’s sensibility, I find, is more in tune with Hollywood old master. A more contemplative version of Welles perhaps. In a way, I like it. Krasznahorkai’s novel is very narrative. A lot are going on. A more “artsy” interpretation will never do justice to the book.
The Melancholy of Resistance is, in a nutshell, a human tragedy. It is within our nature to yearn and strive for order within this post-modernistic world of disorder. And we will settle down on anything that bears a resemblance to order even if it is in fact a chaos. My favorite scene is when Tarr captures the mob and the faces of individuals within. Those expressions are hard to crack. Are they determining faces of someone who realize they are but tools to serve bigger purpose? Are they elated or sad because they lose themselves as individuals? The mob is the very picture of order before it turns into ugly chaos in the next hospital-raiding scene.
A friend of mine who is not so fond of the director jokingly says that “Bela Tarr makes a movie about how great Bela Tarr is.” I somewhat agree. Werckmeister Harmonies is among the more visually arresting films I’ve seen. Camera movement within long shots -- perhaps corresponded to Krasznahorkai’s no-paragraph style -- is poetical. The interplay between light and shadow creates a breath-taking other-worldly atmosphere.
The movie shares some minor shortcoming with the novel such as Eszter’s rambling about music theory. Tarr cuts short those rambling and makes it mercifully contained. (To give Krasznahorkai's credit, this rambling makes more sense in the novel.) Besides both the book and the movie are immense experiences.