In a small isolated European town, there Dwells Janos, a philosophical young man who one night arranges the patrons of a tavern into an imitation of the Sun, the Moon and the Earth. He uses this to tell us about a total eclipse of the Sun. In his brief fable that he narrates at such times when these orbiting bodies achieve their conjunction:
Then came darkness in the sky; then darkness all over. Dogs are howling, rabbits are sitting up, and deer are running off-scared! run! Stampeding away… And even birds turn back confused and fly home in this dreadful twilight that is beyond understanding. Then absolute silence followed by everything living becoming still. Will the hills march? Will heaven fall down on us? Will The earth open under our feet? We don’t know because Total Eclipses come upon us…. But No need to worry it is not finished yet for across gloaming sphere of sun, slowly swims away moon. Again bursts forth sun, to earth again light comes slowly again and warmth floods again earth by .This brings deep emotion piercing through every one as they escape from weighty darkness.
With that, he exits the inn and the remaining portion of the movie maintains to make us fully conscious of this narrative.
Director Béla Tarr does not have issues with giving us “anti-heroes”. This partly because a lot of mainstream cinema today is about advertising as “aspirational” stories influenced by Joseph Campbell’s well-intentioned but overly simple reflections on the Hero’s Journey. Not every fable calls for a hero to slay the dragon. Some tales are about how inhuman humans are; they warn us that in as much as we feel above them, we are just one more species on earth. The play acted out by Janos and his friends reminds us that we occupy an infinitesimal space within an infinite universe. This is real life where things happen and sometimes there is no explanation for it. We certainly understand our world far better than those who came before us, but in comparison to what has gone before, man’s stay on this planet is just a speck in time.
The name of this piece is borrowed from a composer named Andreas Werckmeister, who happens to be an uncle to Gyorgy Janos. The twelve half steps in the octave were built by Werckmeister. This has remained the standard in Western music. That is why when Europeans listen to Asian or African sounds, they might sound weird to them.
According to Gyorgy, our ears have been cut off from the natural sound of music and another system is superimposed on top of it. He explains some contradiction that seems odd to me because I am not a musician myself but are scientifically based. Consequently, that was what happened in Janos’s community. They believe that whatever impediment comes their way can be surmounted yet they struggle against nature’s basic laws which will always defeat them in the end. We persist by change, accommodation-continuous adjustment-and new harmonies to be learned hence requiring us to tune in with our hearts and minds.
When there came a mysterious evil circus into town and dark cloud hung about the place we live in, then one knows that something is coming slowly but surely for this little village.
Janos finds out that the circus main event is a stinking stuffed whale carcass kept in a wagon. Also, there was “The Prince” whom people talk so much about and ringmaster we never meet but hear his voice off-screen. Encounter with this whale makes him reflect about God, nature’s meaning throughout.
On the other hand, another problem has been boiling up at the background. Tünde, György’s ironically estranged wife enjoys a huge political as well as social capital through her husband which she uses to campaign for her movement of “Clean Up The Town”. Her local police chief support seems not enough; she needs more reinforcement. She threatens to go back to her husband if he fails to talk and have people listed by her for joining in his favor. This propaganda then leads to The Prince stirring up agitated crowds who initiate rioting.
A mob only stops causing havoc all over town when they destroy hospitals just in time since there is an extremely old man whose razor thin body reminds them for their own lives’ coping limits during their act on a frail skin & bones naked elderly person who instantly reminds them of how mortal they are. But it is too late now.
Janos watches from afar only to learn later that the mob had targeted him before calming down.
Nevertheless, this is just a matter of time before another event stirs them and they are angry again. He finds a diary left behind by one of the riot suspects that tells about the mob’s raping two young women who worked at the post office.
On his way home, Janos sees Tünde and the police chief meeting somewhere outside, with soldiers ready to charge into town. The riots have been exploited as an opportunity to implement martial law. Janos’ story continues to go downhill from there. As for the films last shot which shows a dead whale in its former cage within the misty fog, it remains in our heart because we know how people want to forget something evil that has happened slowly but surely swallowed up by minds. If you think that Tarr is an optimist, you are wrong.
From his early days, he has been a leftist but with anarchist leanings. This is why it does not come as a surprise at all that he is also an atheist. Among all the evils in the world that make him angrier than anything else, nationalism and its mindlessness are on the top. Just like many leftists, us included, humanity gives him intense satisfaction; this however does not make him see his kind as some extraordinary being. He knows how terribly disturbed we are. However much knowledge we grow, it will be of no importance unless we practice compassionate understanding.
Tarr never hesitates to slam fascist Viktor Orbán whenever he gets a chance. Ideally he’d want Hungarians to choose wisely but in the end it doesn’t matter whether Hungary or France or Germany or the USA still exists or not at all because these are artificial constructs we impose on ourselves distorted by our own self-identities I am not American rather just randomly born there where true freedom does not exist because I was born there by accident
That is why Tarr has been so vocal for over a year and further on concerning Israeli genocide.
Tarr talks about celestial harmony ruling nature whereby our species are lost more in the darkest realms continually being cruel. The concept of “revolution” has many meanings that we often overlook. That’s what was going on at Janos’ little game in the pub. Alignments are made by revolutions, which can be very frightening and overwhelming moments. They are however chances for something better to happen. And it is important who takes them, all of us need them desperately. In his movies, Tarr continuously uses a slowly rotating camera to remind us how much we just go round in circles after all. There can only be changes for better or worse with every iteration we come through. The last part of Sátántangó is called ‘The Circle Closes’.
The whale gazing scene where Janos looks at the whale is rotated.
The camera follows behind the young man then encircles the animal with him. It always happens at Tarr’s intentionally slow pace too. That scene breathes; it lives! We sense what Janos senses a great wonderment within himself!
It is hard to say whether 99% of the audience would not be able to engage on this level of maturity in filmmaking. There are multiple instances during Tarr’s films that I start feeling sleepy and my mind starts wandering. This does not mean that he is a bad film maker, but it is because of conditioning by popular media which makes me demand too much hits of dopamine. Therefore, it’s my responsibility to learn his style and synchronize my pace with his movie rhythm. When I can achieve this, it assumes something like a religious awe that I think religious believers feel towards their gods. This makes Tarr work as if it were a gospel for humanists.
Tarr’s work can be interpreted all day long, and I still have to watch one more film so this will continue but in the end, the director is plain that he doesn’t like his work to be deeply “read”. My mind has a hard time letting go of my English major/Lit Crit brain, and I understand how Werckmeister provoked awe before it made sense. It’s difficult to switch off the mind and concentrate solely on someone else’s humanity.
Now it is hard for some of us not to think of ourselves as the sun but rather just another body moving around an orbit as dictated by this universe that defies our very understanding. You, me and everybody else are just floating here, and once we feel that we are the rulers of reality or the only voice of reason then we are detached from mankind. This is really tough for my Western brain, yet somehow there is a part of me that may be called soul which knows it.
I need to listen to it, hear the harmony in it, the natural rhythm of life. If we fail, all our knowledge is over.
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