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Movies / On DVD / Werckmeister Harmonies
Werckmeister Harmonies

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Werckmeister Harmonies (2001)

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96 %
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Reviews Counted: 27

Fresh: 26

Rotten:1

Average Rating: 8.3/10

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 2 hrs 25 mins

Genre: Dramas

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.... 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]

Starring: Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla

Starring: Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla

Director: Bela Tarr

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

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Release:

Feb 28, 2006

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Werckmeister Harmonies

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Arrange By: Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

Here cosmos and chaos, action and reaction, hope and despair, love and anger, all bump and grind together in a Satanic tango

Full Review Source: Eye for Film | comment Comment
05/14/09
Anton Bitel
Eye for Film

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 Source: Variety | comment Comment
10/05/07
Derek Elley
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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 Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
09/14/07
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
09/14/07
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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 Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
09/14/07
Philip French
Observer [UK]

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

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

Click to read the article

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

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

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
03/17/06
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

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

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
03/14/06
Jeremiah Kipp
Filmcritic.com

Weird, wonderful, witty and unsettling.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
01/26/06
Geoff Andrew
Time Out

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

Full Review Source: Cinematic Reflections | comment Comment
04/23/05
Derek Smith
Cinematic Reflections

For once, understanding is less important than experiencing.

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

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

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
04/20/03
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]

Werckmeister Harmonies exerts a peculiarly powerful spell.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
04/15/03
Tom Dawson
BBC

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

Full Review Source: Sight and Sound | comment Comment
04/01/03
Jonathan Romney
Sight and Sound

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 Source: Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada) | comment Comment
01/19/03
Josef Braun
Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)

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

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

Full Review Source: MovieMartyr.com | comment Comment
03/05/02
Jeremy Heilman
MovieMartyr.com
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | comment Comment
02/23/02
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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 Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
02/03/02
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
 
 
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