I enjoyed Damnation quite a lot. I agree that it wasn’t as good as Werckmeister Harmonies (although not much is in my book), nor was it as good as The Man from London. The ending of the film was still very good, but overall the film lacked the emotional impact of Tarr’s other recent films.
damnation was an transitional film in terms of style and to a certain extent content,four of the five films made before damnation were firmly in the social realist mould.the sequence shots employed fully for the first time in a feature film of his[his hamlet was made for tv]were,i think, partly influenced by the prose style of his new scenarist,laszlo krasznahorkai.
damnation was an transitional film in terms of style and to a certain extent content,four of the five films made before damnation were firmly in the social realist mould.the sequence shots employed fully for the first time in a feature film of his[his hamlet was made for tv]were,i think, partly influenced by the prose style of his new scenarist,laszlo krasznahorkai.
Damnation is my favourite Tarr fiilm.
The guy dancing outside in the rain is one of the most fascinating shots ever in my opinion.
Tarr’s last four films are all wonderful though.
I think Damnation is good- better than The Man from London (which I thought was terrible), but nowhere near the league of Satantango or Werckmeister Harmonies. Damnation actually felt a little overly influenced by David Lynch to me, particularly Blue Velvet.
bela tarr has always denied any outside influence on any of his films
Tarr talks a lot- most of it’s good stuff and a little bit is complete bullshit. He’s also cited Fassbinder and others (Cassavetes) as influences at various times.
i like damnation more than Werckmeister Harmonies my favorite Tarr too
your probably right ,still i can’t quite see the influence of lynch on damnation ,the absurdist atmosphere is very eastern european.
back to the top for this thread
I just ordered a the Artificial Eye DVD of Damnation, so I’ll give it a repeat viewing here pretty soon. I think the opening shot is absolutely masterful. You can just feel the Eastern European depression sinking through every one of Tarr’s long takes.
Jesse Richards: Blue Velvet – how???
I’ve been working on watching all of Bela Tarr’s films an this one is waiting at the house right now. I’ve been wanting to watch it for a while now. And even more so since I just watched Satantango and really want to watch everything he has done
My favorite film of all time.
Jesse Richards – The idea that Damnation is influenced by Blue Velvet is kind of laughable. Where do you see that at all?
According to IMDB Blue Velvet didn’t even get released in Hungary til’ 1990. And Tarr was filming Damnation in 1986 for an ’87 release, so the chances that he had even seen Blue Velvet are pretty slim.
From the start, opening shot, you can tell that its the work of an artist. Atonal dialogue structure, sequence meister and that woman singing at the titanic bar..
I love this film, but it isn’t Werckmeister or Satantango, all three are absolutely beautiful films that I adore though, the way Tarr makes films is, I feel how films should be made – that this is what cinema has been aspiring too all these years, nothing much has gotten close to it’s power and beauty, the whole Tarkovsky influenced Sculpting in Time long takes thing is just stunning to behold.
I also really did not get on with The Man From London at all, I found the whole thing absolutely tedious – I would like to see it again though as I am sure I missed something there. I see absolutely no David Lynch in Tarr’s films at all, could you please explain what you mean?
I’d like to ask two questions;
1, What other filmmakers have a similar visual style of filmmaking to Tarr, in the usage of incredibly long takes and whatnot? I find it just stunning and I love cinema with such an approach.
2, What are his films prior to Damnation like, I have read they are much more Fassbinder-esque (who I am yet to check out) and lack the style created in Damnation. None of his earlier films are available over here.
cheers
1. Sharunas Bartas is remotely similar. Unlike Tarr, he has approximately 2 lines of dialogue at the most in his films so their approach is slightly different. Other than that, Miklós Jancsó’s 60’s-70’s work, especially The Red and the White, and The Round-up.
2. His pre-Damnation films are more similar to Cassavetes. Social realism works.
A question of my own:
@Mikel, could you explain what you mean by Atonal dialogue structure?
Cheers Nick, gave them a quick look and just added the Jancsó films to my amazon basket! :) Shame Bartas doesn’t seem to be available.
I would also say that Tsai Ming Ling and Hou Hsiao Hsien are pretty similar in a meditative sense. Also Pedro Costa, who I’m not that big of a fan but makes similarly reflective films
I don’t know about you but I found The Man Form London to be also pretty similar in terms of theme and character development to Fallen by Tarr’s usual cinematographer Fred Kelemen.
@ Nick Block
If you listen to the dialogues, it’s the same tone, it lacks scale and that provides an hypnotic effect on the viewer and the listener.
@filmbot
The usual Dp for Tarr is Gabor Medgivy. Fred Kelemen is amazing but it was their first time working together.
@ Allan
You can also check Alexsandr Sokurov, Albert Serra and tarkovsky’s first influence Alexander Dovshenko. It’s not only how long the take is it but how the time and the subject comes to the frame and out of the frame. That’s why the choreography of those shots take a very long time to be arranged. Bela tarr has said that the framing of a scene is even more important than light.
Jeffery Hart
What’s everyone’s thoughts on this film? Unlike werckmiester it didn’t have a real climax, it just tapered off but I guess that’s the point. It had beautiful and haunting moments but lacked the substance of his other films I think in that it didn’t have as much to say as something like Werckmeister Harmonies.