Un inocente joven es testigo del estallido de violencia que se desata en un pequeño pueblo tras la llegada de un circo y sus peculiares atracciones: una ballena gigante y un hombre misterios... Leer todoUn inocente joven es testigo del estallido de violencia que se desata en un pequeño pueblo tras la llegada de un circo y sus peculiares atracciones: una ballena gigante y un hombre misterioso llamado "El Príncipe".Un inocente joven es testigo del estallido de violencia que se desata en un pequeño pueblo tras la llegada de un circo y sus peculiares atracciones: una ballena gigante y un hombre misterioso llamado "El Príncipe".
- Dirección
- Guionistas
- Elenco
- Premios
- 5 premios ganados y 2 nominaciones en total
- Man In Western Boots
- (as Djoko Rossich)
- Porter
- (as dr. Horváth Putyi)
- Aunt Piri
- (as Almási Albert Éva)
Opiniones destacadas
The story presents a powerful allegory, every bit as biting and accusatory as Plato's "Allegory of the Cave", exposing the nature of human folly and the reason why society does, did, and always shall suck. I've found that the people who most enjoy this film are those who are moderately to extremely cynical; it shows us a very dark, nihilistic, nightmarish world similar to what we've seen in the classics "Brazil", Orson Welles' "The Trial" and basically every Herzog film ever made.
But what makes this dark film enjoyable to watch is that doesn't just show us that humanity is flawed; it seeks to explain *why* humanity is flawed.
I'll warn you up front, this is a very slow moving film with seemingly pointless, indulgent scenes of people silently walking down the street, eating a can of soup, or walking down the street in the opposite direction. Something to bear in mind is, just like in the epic "2001: A Space Odyssey" which has scenes of, say, an astronaut running on a giant hamster wheel for a painfully long time, these scenes are there to convey the monotony of existence. Even beyond that, these scenes are supposed to convey the comfort humans feel with tedious & ritualistic behavior. Order vs. chaos.
The second thing that might help is the meaning of the title "Werckmeister Harmonies" which is the key to understanding the film's message. It's explained in a scene near the beginning, but I'll try to explain it in simpler terms here. In western music, we have a particular tuning system for all instruments. This system was developed by Andreas Werckmeister around the year 1700, and centuries later we still use it. The problem is, in a nutshell, it's wrong. Werckmeister's "well tempered" tuning is a compromise that allows instruments to sound good in a variety of keys, but it sacrifices the purity of sounding perfect in any 1 particular key. Pure, "natural" instruments such as the recorder flute sound great but they are limited to 1 key, 7 notes per octave. When western music took on complex instruments like the piano & guitar which play in every key, 12 notes per octave, a certain degree of fudging had to be made in their tuning. This is because in the natural world, the diverse frequencies of music don't add up to neatly repeating 12- note octaves as we want (for some reason we lose about 1/5 of a note every octave). Thus the music we know today, while not necessarily being unpleasant, is not as pure & simple as true "naturally tuned" instruments of yesteryear.
How does this relate to the movie? The movie is about humans' need to quantify the unquantifiable, our need to create artificial order that suits us, even though it may be an aberration of nature. If you grasp this idea, along with the metaphor of the Werckmeister tuning, as well as the creative story that unfolds in the film, all augmented with intelligent cinematography, you will adore this film.
Congratulations, you have successfully read through the driest & most boring IMDb review I have ever written. I have no doubt that you will enjoy solving the philosophical puzzle of the film "Werckmeister Harmonies".
Similar, challenging films include: "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1969), "Aguirre the Wrath of God" (1972), or the more recent Coen brothers' philosophical "A Serious Man", or the brain-blasting Kaufman dark comedy/mindbender "Synecdoche, NY" (2008).
The stark black-and-white camerawork is by Medvigy Gábor, and the melancholic music is composed by Víg Mihály. The most harrowing scene is the raid on the town hospital, the longest scene of the film, shot in complete silence. Frightening and senses-staggering, the picture of the naked old man burns into the soul. Highly recommended, a must-see for anyone who is interested in the recent history of Central-Eastern Europe and wants to understand it.
Béla Tarr, Hungarian filmmaker - known for philosophical arthouse cinema delivers a mystical mad tale (that will require immense patience, I think I did 10 household chores while watching this movie) that is original in content and absurd yet meaningful.
37 long takes make up this oeuvre of world cinema and a black-and-white palette works best for such kind of art - colour would distract from the cinematic experience.
Watch it and absorb the melancholic background music - images and sounds melt so beautifully in this arthouse venture.
Bela Tarr's direction is stunning. The lighting is brilliant throughout, but none more so than when the circus comes to town in the middle of the night. The care and patience with which scenes are built greatly enhances the intensity of the most violent moments. The scene, for example, when a mob march down a long street before attacking a hospital matches the greatest moments of black-&-white silent cinema.
The film retains a disturbing ambiguity throughout, right up to its powerful ending. What is the significance of the whale and its owners? And is Valuska (Lars Rudolph) as innocent as it seems on the surface? The result is a long (140 minutes), gripping and exciting film that leaves more questions than answers at the end.
¿Sabías que…?
- TriviaThe film is composed of 39 languidly paced tracking shots.
- Citas
János Valuska: You are the sun. The sun doesn't move, this is what it does. You are the Earth. The Earth is here for a start, and then the Earth moves around the sun. And now, we'll have an explanation that simple folks like us can also understand, about immortality. All I ask is that you step with me into the boundlessness, where constancy, quietude and peace, infinite emptiness reign. And just imagine, in this infinite sonorous silence, everywhere is an impenetrable darkness. Here, we only experience general motion, and at first, we don't notice the events that we are witnessing. The brilliant light of the sun always sheds its heat and light on that side of the Earth which is just then turned towards it. And we stand here in it's brilliance. This is the moon. The moon revolves around the Earth. What is happening? We suddenly see that the disc of the moon, the disc of the moon, on the Sun's flaming sphere, makes an indentation, and this indentation, the dark shadow, grows bigger... and bigger. And as it covers more and more, slowly only a narrow crescent of the sun remains, a dazzling crescent. And at the next moment, the next moment - say that it's around one in the afternoon - a most dramatic turn of event occurs. At that moment the air suddenly turns cold. Can you feel it? The sky darkens, then goes all dark. The dogs howl, rabbits hunch down, the deer run in panic, run, stampede in fright. And in this awful, incomprehensible dusk, even the birds... the birds too are confused and go to roost. And then... Complete Silence. Everything that lives is still. Are the hills going to march off? Will heaven fall upon us? Will the Earth open under us? We don't know. We don't know, for a total eclipse has come upon us... But... but no need to fear. It's not over. For across the sun's glowing sphere, slowly, the Moon swims away. And the sun once again bursts forth, and to the Earth slowly there comes again light, and warmth again floods the Earth. Deep emotion pierces everyone. They have escaped the weight of darkness
Mr. Hagelmayer: That's enough! Out of here, you tubs of beer!
János Valuska: But Mr. Hagelmayer. It's still not over.
- ConexionesEdited into Gli ultimi giorni dell'umanità (2022)
- Bandas sonorasBook 1 - Prelude No. 8 in E-flat minor (BWV 853)
from The Well-Tempered Clavier
composed by Johann Sebastian Bach
The "grating" recording that György listens to in his study. He has retuned his piano to a pure tuning, with which the Bach prelude is incommensurable, since it relies on the tempered tuning system.
Selecciones populares
- How long is Werckmeister Harmonies?Con tecnología de Alexa
Detalles
- Fecha de lanzamiento
- Países de origen
- Idiomas
- También se conoce como
- Werckmeister Harmonies
- Locaciones de filmación
- Baja, Hungría(square)
- Productoras
- Ver más créditos de la compañía en IMDbPro
Taquilla
- Presupuesto
- FRF 10,000,000 (estimado)
- Total en EE. UU. y Canadá
- USD 69,923
- Fin de semana de estreno en EE. UU. y Canadá
- USD 4,852
- 7 oct 2001
- Total a nivel mundial
- USD 69,923
- Tiempo de ejecución2 horas 25 minutos
- Color
- Mezcla de sonido
- Relación de aspecto
- 1.66 : 1
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