freebart

The film is (partly) about the fact that the globalisation of production does not go hand in hand with the globalisation of (real) culture, and therefore people lose a part of their "humanness", and get a strange substitute for it, the so-called "corporate culture". This problem affects all of us and most of us must have encountered similar situations or feelings as the persons in the film, that is why imho it resonates with so many people. It is especially meaningful coming from a nation, which in the past produced the greatest artists and thinkers (and not only the dark years), and which by all its peculiar characteristics and abilities would be meant to oppose the above trend. Sorry if my English is a bit strange.

I like Simenon as an author and Tarr as a director, so an adaptation of a Simenon novel by Tarr raised my interest. Tarr has resumed his Ars Poetica with the two words "human dignity", and in this he resembles Simenon, who also portrays with compassion even his most wretched characters. I think Simenon would have liked this film of Tarr, as he was fond of plastic scenes, and strove for plastic descriptions. I do not know what Simenon might have said of the slow pace of the film or the reduced plot. There is a slowness to his books also, but also many action, dialog, tension, humor etc. As for me, the slowness annoyed me a bit, as in all films of Tarr, yet I was watching it on the video and jumped the scenes I found boring. The overall effect of the film was good and it was lasting as well.