In the Hungarian lowlands, during Communist times, a town is unsettled by the arrival of a strange traveling circus. It attracts the interest of the inhabitants who line up by the hundreds to see the main attraction: a stuffed whale hiding a mysterious prince.

Béla Tarr is a name to inspire awe in many a cinephile—his grand films of languorous takes are accompanied by a form of ethereal drift so masterfully orchestrated that they leave us thoroughly mesmerized, without a care for time. Behold: some of modern cinema’s most earth-shattering images lie here.