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Werckmeister Harmonies

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Werckmeister Harmonies (2001)

96%
100%
77%
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96 %
Reviews Counted: 26 Fresh: 25  Rotten:1 Average Rating: 8.4/10

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 2 hrs 25 mins

Theatrical Release: Oct 10, 2001 Limited

Synopsis: In a nameless, frozen, Eastern European village cloaked in fog, Janos (Lars Rudolph) choreographs three grizzly drunks in a pantomime of the earth circling the sun and the moon circling the earth. He freezes his actors and describes a total eclipse of the sun; the world grinds to a halt in... In a nameless, frozen, Eastern European village cloaked in fog, Janos (Lars Rudolph) choreographs three grizzly drunks in a pantomime of the earth circling the sun and the moon circling the earth. He freezes his actors and describes a total eclipse of the sun; the world grinds to a halt in momentary fear until the warmth of the sun again blankets the earth. On his errands in the wintry wee hours, he hears his neighbors worry about the severe coal shortage, the disappearance of entire families, and the impending riot. He watches as a truck lumbers into town, pulling an enormous corrugated shed behind it. Inside is a stuffed whale. The most gigantic ever seen. A sign says that a Prince accompanies the whale. Janos goes to visit Uncle Gyorgy (Peter Fitz), a musicologist determined to prove that the order imposed on sound by the Werckmeister Harmonies is false and only sonic chaos and disorder is truth. Weary and hungry, Janos finally makes it home when Aunt Tünde (Hanna Schygulla) arrives, threatening to move back in with Gyorgy if Janos does not convince him to use his influence to help her start her "clean town movement." It's simply exquisite. [More]

Genre: Dramas

Starring: Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla

Director: Bela Tarr
Screenwriter: Bela Tarr, László Krasznahorkai
Producer: Franz Goess, Miklós Szita
Composer: Vig Mihaly

DVD Info

Release:

Feb 28, 2006

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Keep Case

Audio:

  • (unspecified) - Hungarian

Interactive Features:

  • Scene Access

Additional Products:

  • Collectible Booklet

Buy It On DVD

Reviews

 
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Ratings Image
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Six years after the 7-1/2-hour Satan's Tango, Magyar maverick Bela Tarr makes a stunning feature return with "Werckmeister Harmonies," another hypnotic meditation on popular demagogy and mental manipulation that's a snap at 145 minutes.

Full Review | comment Comment
10/05/07
Derek Elley
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
4/4

Bela Tarr's style seems to be an attempt to regard his characters with great intensity and respect, to observe them without jostling them, to follow unobtrusively as they move through their worlds, which look so ordinary and are so awesome, like ours.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/14/07
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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N/A

A chilling, mesmerizing, intense account of ethnic cleansing (in spirit if not in letter) from Hungarian master Bela Tarr.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/14/07
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
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N/A

It's shot in static or very slow-moving long-takes; the monochrome images are deliberately oppressive; the pace would strike the organisers of a state funeral as excessively slow.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/14/07
Philip French
Observer [UK]
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4/4

Limited appeal, a slow pace, a demanding film; but as interesting a work of art as the best of films

Full Review | comment Comment
04/14/06
Marty Mapes
Movie Habit
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
03/28/06
Rumsey Taylor
Not Coming to a Theater Near You
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A+

A film that encourages one to put on their thinking cap.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/17/06
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ratings Image
5/5

dares to say the apocalypse has a startling, bleak beauty all its own.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/14/06
Jeremiah Kipp
Filmcritic.com
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N/A

Weird, wonderful, witty and unsettling.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/26/06
Geoff Andrew
Time Out
Ratings Image
93/100

It is an arduous task, but the film achieves a transcendent and ethereal beauty that only the few truly great masterpieces attain.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/23/05
Derek Smith
Cinematic Reflections
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4/5

For once, understanding is less important than experiencing.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/08/03
Patrick Peters
Empire Magazine
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5/5

This will be a tough watch for many: an uncompromisingly difficult and severe experience. But I found it unique, mesmeric and sublime.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/20/03
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
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4/5

Werckmeister Harmonies exerts a peculiarly powerful spell.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/15/03
Tom Dawson
BBC
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N/A

Tarr's true achievement is to attain the condition of silence, and of bottomless, awesomely inscrutable nightmare.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/01/03
Jonathan Romney
Sight and Sound
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N/A

Perhaps Tarr's greatest gift is his merciless sense of cinematic economy and an ambiguity that springs not from some intellectual conceit but from the sheer honesty of his gaze.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/19/03
Josef Braun
Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)
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N/A

The pacing is slow, but the film is entrancing and earns a permanent place in the viewer's mind.

comment Comment
05/30/02
Andy Klein
New Times
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4/4

A more accessible, less successful, if less rambling, work than Tarr’s Satantango.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/05/02
Jeremy Heilman
MovieMartyr.com
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4/4

I haven't seen any other Tarr films ... but Werckmeister Harmonies alone convinces me that he's one of today's great film artists.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/03/02
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
Ratings Image
N/A

Using long takes, sensuous camera movements and the mournful beauty of Mihaly Vig's score, Tarr offers in Werckmeister Harmonies an indelible statement on loneliness and spiritual thirst.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/01/02
Edward Guthmann
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
N/A

It should be clear to any one who watches [Bela Tarr's] films that the artistry itself is what connotes hope.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/28/01
George Wu
culturevulture.net
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