User reviews

Although the inspiration is clear, there is no film quite like Sátántangó. Building on the vision and style of Andrei Tarkovsky, in this film, Tarr attempts to create a completely different experience of cinematic time. The best way of illustrating this is with this fact: the average time between cuts in a typical Hollywood film is 2.5 seconds, the average time between cuts in this film is 2.5 minutes. The shots are complex, they travel through landscapes, they track along buildings, they typically settle on closed doors or zoom into characters' backs. The screen often becomes filled with blackness; the viewer is like a curious child waiting for movement, waiting for the opportunity to see again. Until, eventually, he is able to see again, and he is grateful for the return of his vision. With each shot, the film is redefining and developing the viewer's perception of cinematic time and space.

If it seems I'm focusing too much on how the film is composed as opposed to what the film is about, there's a reason for that: it's not so easy to discern exactly what the plot of the film is. It's set in a Hungarian village. The villagers have acquired money and are considering betraying one another. There is a mysterious prodigal son, who has a preternatural hold over the villagers and manipulates them seemingly at his will. Police officers are involved and there is a potential spy-element taking place within the narrative but, essentially, the plot is secondary to the way in which the film represents sheer experience. The experience of the life of various villagers is presented unedited, unfiltered. There are long scenes involving a disturbed, neglected child and her abused cat; there's a drunken, reclusive doctor; there are drunken villages dancing an inebriated, tortured tango.

The film, for all of its representation of everyday experience, never feels like a documentary or even cinema verité. There's a jagged quality to the film, something foreboding and nightmarish. It feels constantly unsettling and is captivating as a result. The way in which the film blends the quotidian and the surreal is utterly unique. Yes, once again, it is clearly inspired by Tarkovsky's work, but the film takes this in a new direction, a direction which seeks to blend artifice and experience to the point where the gap between the two becomes indiscernible.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that it's 7-hours long...

Goaded on by curiosity, I saw SATANTANGO at the Pacific Film Archive several years ago. Critics gushed that SATANTANGO was without parallel - but two hours into the movie, I was less than impressed. Very little plot. Black and gray photography. Segments that went on seemingly forever, with no clear point. Much of the audience filed out early, and I left early, too. Was the director, Bela Tarr, trying to make the film an endurance contest?

More recently, I consulted the Internet Movie Database to see what was written about SATANTANGO. The cumulative rating of 8.5 of 10 was impressive, as were the write-ups. "A stunning experience," says one viewer. "Biggest cinematic experience in history," says another. The kudos go on and on. But if you scroll down the database, you'll also find the negative reviews. "Self- indulgent, annoying," one writer says. One of the more measured responses is, "I do not regret that I saw this movie, but I certainly to not think it was a day well-spent" - after giving the film a 1 of 10 rating.

So, I decided to see the film again - this time on DVD - to determine if my initial dismissal at the PFA was warranted. And I learned how to appreciate a different kind of movie - and even come to enjoy it. My hints to a naive viewer:

• Calibrate your attention span. The individual takes of SATANTANGO are unusually long; the first scene, set outside a pen for steers and chickens, lasts over eight minutes, with no cuts. Just a single tracking shot. This happens through the entire film; in fact, the long takes and slow tracking shots give the film its rhythm and style. If you go into SATANTANGO expecting a film paced to contemporary standards, you'll be disappointed. If you can, take a few breaks between segments - and ask questions.

• Learn about recent European history. It's possible to enjoy SATANTANGO on its own merits, but understanding recent history helps greatly. The film dramatizes the economic depression that gripped the break-up of the Soviet blok, and things gone very bad, indeed. There's crumbling infrastructure everywhere. People struggle to get by, just barely, by depending on agricultural collectives (like the one depicted in SATANTANGO). This gray, depressing worldview would eventually engulf the region.

• Structure, structure, structure. The key to appreciating SATANTANGO lies in understanding the film's structure. Another reviewer here aptly mentioned Akira Kurosawa's RASHOMON, wherein the film's narrative is defined by a single event - told in entirely different ways by the main characters. SATANTANGO uses a similar technique; several characters experience the same segment of time from different points of view. The eight-minute "preface" introduces us to the collective itself - where the barebones infrastructure is shown. From here, each segment of the film is separated by an inter-title; when a new segment starts, we see the same action - from a new character's POV. But nearly every segment involves leaving this wet, cold, impoverished piece of hell - or try to exploit it.

• Dance "the Satantango." The musical segments can open the way to appreciating and even enjoying SATANTANGO. Music is important for Tarr, and the repeating figures of dance are a metaphor. The tango is a repeating dance that abides by the rule, "one step forward, two steps back." It's reflected in the lives of the characters, who take one step forward in their lives, but always end up two steps back. The "chapters" of the film don't move forward like a typical narrative work; it repeats the same segment of time, over and over again. If you're frustrated by the fact that the movie seems static - that's the point. SATANTANGO is a story that can't move forward; it repeats the same familiar song, over and over - until a development determines a new course of action for the characters.

I didn't enjoy SATANTANGO when I saw it the first time, but I've since become a fan. The investment of time may seem extreme to some, but it's more than worthwhile.

Satantango (1994) ****

Satantango, Bela Tarr's 1994 7.5 hour masterpiece is incredible first and foremost in that despite its length and multiple shots of literally nothing taking place it is never, I repeat, never boring. This is one of the most incredible films I have ever seen. Complied of only 150 shots, many of which last for over 10 minutes, Tarr and his cinematographer manage to create a hypnotic and beautiful depiction of a desolated communal farm in post-communism Hungary. The scenery is at once withered and ugly, yet compellingly beautiful. The land is muddy and the buildings are in shambles. There are two scenes where main characters walk with the camera following as multitudes of trash blow along with them in the wind, creating a somehow hypnotic effect.

The film opens with literally a 10 minute shot following a herd of cows wandering through a seemingly rundown farm town. The camera makes what has to be one of the most incredible pans in cinematic history panning to the left for most of the ten minute scene. Who else but Bela Tarr would try such a thing; and who else but Bela Tarr could make it work so well.

The film follows the people of the farm in essentially three sections. The first section begins by showing Futaki having an affair with Schmidt's wife. Schmidt we find out is planning to run away with the money the town has made over the past year but comes home and is confronted by Futaki who has suck out only to come right back and knock on the door. They hear that the smooth talking Irimias and his sidekick Patrina, who have been believed dead by the town, are on their way back to town. The other residents, who all plan to take their money and leave town, seem to be under the thumb of Irimias and after hearing of his return meet at the local pub and discuss what to do and wait nervously for Irimias's arrival.

The scenes are broken down into 12 steps, such as in a Tango. Nearly all of which are connected in that we see what has already happened from another perspective. The first section as noted involves Schmidt and Futaki; the second and one of the most hypnotic in the film is of an overweight and frail doctor who sits in front of his window documenting the actions of the townspeople. He details how Futaki is slipping out of Schmidt's house, and then goes back in, a scene which we've already seen except this time it's from the window of the doctor's house. The doctor hulks around and then realizes he must leave his home to get more alcohol. Scenes go on like this weaving in out and out the story line from different points of view. The first third of the film deals with the realization of Irimias' return, and exposes the corruption of the citizen's capitalism by their greed. The second third is the post powerful. It documents a little girl who is conned by her brother and ignored by her mother. The only thing she has power over is her cat, and in order to feel that superiority she tortures and poisons the cat. I will not reveal how, but this section turns to tragedy which will be exploited by the smooth talking Irimias.

The final third deals with the corruption of Irimias's communist plan for the farm. He convinces them to give him the power and all the money that has been saved up only to con them. This section is brooding with satire, as is the first in some ways, and has shades of Orwell's animal farm – the dumb and obedient townspeople conned into subjugation by the charming Irimias.

Essentially, Satantango is a 2 hour movie shown without its cuts bringing it to 7.5 hours. The film never uses its drawn out scenes to further the narrative, but neither does it use them for simply aesthetic purposes either. The film's length and incredibly long shots seem to be rubbing the atmosphere right in our nose. Many shots have the camera move, raising and weaving and circling defining space like no other film. Some of the extended scenes are incredibly funny in bizarre ways, such as an extended dance seen (from which the film gets its title) where the villagers get drunk waiting for Irimias and Patrina, dancing to accordion music while the little girl peers in through the window; and another scene that circles the room while two officers dictate and type out Irimias's statement, cleverly changing vulgar statements (which I found hilarious) and in the middle of it all, sitting down and having a snack in real time! These scenes sound perhaps boring, but somehow Tarr makes them seem riveting and when they end it's almost sad to see it. Another incredible extended sequence sees the camera facing down at the sleeping villagers circling them ever so slowing as a narrator describes their dreams.

Satantango is a film like no other. Its scope is breathtaking and its style is beautifully crafted. Tarr's films are almost like ballets: the camera moves always gracefully and in ways that we would only imagine that a cut was necessary, never faltering and always creating incredibly beautiful dances, and they set a mood perhaps better than anyone else. Satantango is Tarr's masterwork, epic in every sense of the word. If you get the chance to see this one, do yourself a favor and experience all 7 and a half hours of its majestic and drab atmosphere. Satantango is film for the sake of film and art for the sake of art.

4/4

I was mesmerized by this 7-hour long 1994 Hungarian film called "Satantango." Filmed entirely in black and white, director Bela Tarr has created some of the most stunning images I've seen on film. The opening shot, about 10 minutes long, is an enormous tracking shot following a herd of cows wandering through an otherwise desolate village. Then there's this 10-minute take of a window at dawn. Everything but the window is dark, then ever so slowly morning light brings the objects in the room into view, a character finally enters, peers out the window, then goes back to bed. There's a 5-minute tracking shot of two characters hurrying down the street in a horrendous wind while a veritable tornado of garbage and litter whirls about them. There's a stark, almost surreal woods strewn with fog. No take is less than a minute long, and there are about a dozen around 10 minutes. The average edited shot in a Hollywood film is less than 10 seconds. It's almost mind-boggling the logistical and practical difficulties of sustaining such long takes. In a great many, Tarr utilizes extensive camera movement. The camera tracks and weaves and gives you a sense of space found in few other films -- maybe those of a Welles, Ophuls, or Kubrick. The dance in the middle of the film from which the film takes its title is shown in one 10-minute take. It cuts away to a little girl watching the dance for a few minutes, then cuts back to the dance for another 10-minute take. And nothing about this sequence is boring. The eight actors in the scene carry on heartily. Another inspired shot has the camera revolving around seven sleeping characters while a narrator describes the dreams of each.

The story concerns a group of poor villagers who gets conned by a smart talker who was once one of their own into giving up all their money to go live on a non-existent communal farm. The first 4-1/2 hours is made up of 5 "stories" from the perspective of different characters over the course of the same day. Some of the events in each story overlap, so you see them occur again and again, but each time from a different perspective since they occur in the context of a different character's life. It is not unlike what Tarantino does with a segment in "Jackie Brown," but whereas Tarantino's technique is tiresome because it is plot-related, Tarr's is a grand achievement in tone.

The first story shows us Futaki, who while having an affair with Mrs. Schmid, finds out that her husband is planning to make off with the money that eight villagers have come into through one of conman Irimias's schemes. Then they both discover Irimias, who was thought to be dead, has returned to their village. The second story follows Irimias and his trying to evade trouble with the law. The third shows us a doctor who observes the other villagers and who writes down everything he experiences in journals that he keeps. The fourth has a young girl taking out her miseries in life on a cat and contemplates suicide. The fifth shows all the pertinent villagers gather together at a bar and drinking and dancing until they are all in a drunken stupor.

Satantango is one of the grand achievements in cinema of this decade.

This is my favorite film of all time and its such a pity that it gets screened so rarely, but who can blame the cinemas as not too many people are prepared to take Tarr's advice and call in sick in order to spend eight hours at the movies instead of going to work. Also, I reckon this is one of the very few films you actually have to see on a big screen, so even if it was available on DVD, it wouldn't do much good. I've seen it three times so far and I got blown away every single time. So I really urge you to give it a go if this epic masterpiece comes anywhere near you. First time I saw it was on the Berlin Film Festival in 94 and I have to admit I wasn't really prepared to sit through the whole thing, but after three hours I was completely hooked and when the credits finally rolled in, I was rather sad that it was over. I would have liked to spend another few hours in this strange and compelling world. OK, the plot in itself is kinda depressing and bearing in mind that it runs for so many hours, not that much happens, but to complain about the absence of jolly dialog and action packed stunts would be completely beside the point. You just have to be willing to go along with Tarr's approach and once you accept that storytelling here is a bit different to what you are used to, the whole thing it is more exciting, entertaining and gripping than everything you've ever seen. Tarr's main achievement in my view is that he creates a completely new form of imagery and its so utterly convincing that I still wonder why it never caught on big time. Instead of editing the takes into a scene during post production, he shots almost everything in one go with the help of a steady cam. As the takes are as long as 7 minutes (just a spirited guess, I never timed them) and involve occasionally more than 9 actors its just utterly amazing how Tarr choreographs actors and camera in a way that it seems perfectly natural and you get to see exactly what you need to see. Well its pretty hard to explain if you haven't seen it as it really is so different from everything else. What can I tell you? Every single frame is aesthetically a revelation, thus making this an utter delight from start to finish. I could harp on endlessly about why I love this film so much. About the absolutely convincing atmosphere, the great acting, the inventive use of lighting, how the story unfolds, the subtle use of humor, but as it is with all great love affairs, words fail to even hint at the magnificence of Sátántangó. Go, see and believe.

I saw this film at a Bela Taar festival and I remember it having 3 or 4 breaks because it was so long. But it was worth it. I am constantly remembering the images from this piece, I don´t even remember the exact story, but the images, the sequences, were just lovely. If you ever have a chance to see this film projected, take it. Don´t worry if you can´t sit through the whole thing, just see some of it, you won´t forget it. Marvelous long takes, wonderful characters. That first scene with the tracking shot of the cows and the two guys walking down the street with the garbage blowing in the wind around them. Wonderful black and white film. I advise all cat lovers to stay away. Bela Taar is one of the best.

My name is George Zoes and I am the assistant director of Theo Angelopoulos, the famous director from Greece. I just finished watching the movie and I am in state of cinematic nirvana. I only thought Theo Angelopoulos had the secans shots but I was mistaken.

Bela Tar knows what he is doing. For the people who are addicted to post modern cinema this movie would be a nervous breakdown. But for the people who love the power of images, who keep their minds open, who investigate the same art of cinema, its a miracle this film exists.

The time games that Bela Tar plays with the shots from a different angle are unique and the atmosphere that he creates conviced me that this is a parrarel universe rather than a cinema story. Its a purgative cinema that personally gave me trust to make my own feature film. The visual story seems greater than the written one but its not. I have the feeling that this form is the most suitable for this content. Its like the flesh and the blood, you cant distinguish them.

Thank you Bela Tar and to your screenwriter.

I am ready to leave Theo to work with you.

There really is no way to evaluate this film without assessing it as a 7 1/2 hour death trudge. The runtime is the purpose of the film and Bela Tarr knows it. There really is no way to spoil this film because it barely has a plot and does its best to divert itself from it once it gets going. Even if you know the sort of repetitious psychological torture you're about to subject yourself to you still have to endure it.

Although I certainly took it as a tantric cinematic experience, I won't say that I enjoyed it nor that I particularly expected to enjoy it. So far as I know nobody has ever been forced to sit through this film Clockwork Orange style. As a voluntary experience the film is just a method for the audience to confront its own masochism and the dreariness of its existence.

That said, I think that in the 7 hours I spent watching it (about 25 minutes were lost due to it being a Pal conversion and running imperceptibly faster than usual) maybe 2 1/2 hours were brilliant. Of course, I can't assess whether those moments of brilliance coming later on in the film were actually brilliant or of I had just begun to submit to the film the way interrogation subjects start to crack after sleep deprivation.

The film has some very strong suits, namely the cinematography and setting. There were some moments where I laughed more than I had ever laughed in a film but I think that might have just been from cracking under pressure. I did think the last shot was perfect, although it would have been better without the final voice over.

Also, the one game that I played throughout the film that kept me going was "Which Andrei Tarkovsky film does this most resemble?" While I do think that Bela Tarr has certainly championed his own form of patent miserablism, I did notice about eight shots (amounting to about an hour of the film if not more) that looked entirely cribbed from Tarkovsky's repertoire. Maybe someday I'll edit out the Tarkovsky film located within this film and see if I can pass it off on anyone unfamiliar with Tarr.

That said, I'm... happy(???) that I sat through the whole thing, if only because afterward I got to go for a nice long bike ride and enjoy the fact that the world is in color and I don't live in a post communist society. Maybe that's how Albert Hoffmann felt.

I will say that I was disappointed in the film. Although that's kind of like being disappointed with the melody in a John Cage piece. I really loved Werckmeister Harmonies but I despised Damnation. This one falls pretty evenly between the two, it just happens to fall from space, burn up on re-entry and take seven hours to hit the ground.

In the end the audience only has the same thing to hold on to as the characters living in these miserable conditions; that they endured.

This is one of the greatest movies I've seen, as the film is not boring and tiring during more than seven hours. The beautiful long shots about this deserted country-side and it's people are so rich, that they crucially contribute to the understanding of the story. When we see somebody walking for ten minutes in the forest we have the possibility to know all his/her life. In order to understand the plot it's not enough to listen to dialogues and pay attention to the classical narrative elements. You have to contemplate and study every image, the gestures, the cloth, the environment. The long shots allow also us also to include in the film's perception our own experiences of the world. We understand the events based on our own experiences: we have the time to remember what is it like walking in mud, touching a cat, etc. If you let yourself taught by director Béla Tarr, your perception will change in 1 or 2 hours, and you will be able to feel and understand images much more deeper than before. Don't miss it!

Satan's Tango: You can tell from the first 10 minute enormous tracking shot following cattle meandering in the rain through a devastated, crumbling, seemingly deserted village, that it was going to be THAT kind of film.

This is Hungary after the withdrawal of the Soviet occupation of 40 years, and we are at a collective farm on the Hungarian great plain that has collapsed along with Communism.

Surreal, mesmerizing, sinister it challenges the mindful viewer to look closely, and listen, rather read closely, except I was lucky to do both. This film is for more mature audiences. I would compare it to plunging into Shakespeare drama that is really hard to follow at first, but pulls you on regardless, even if you are not getting everything, with a big payload.

I could not believe I was watching it from when I got home from work till after midnight. One main theme that stuck out for me was how developing a public persona, and the art of speech can be so powerful. The enigmatic central figure, Irimiás, is an epitome of this. Good looking, tall, educated, and with a golden tongue, he sure has a Satanic allure for whom the disparaged, uneducated villagers dance the tango.

There are some really funny parts too, the old doc watching and writing everything down in an alcoholic haze, then especially when the two officers rewrite Irimiás' letter and how they describe the villagers. The scene with the little girl and her cat is a heart stopper. I did not get everything to a T and want to read more about this, and want to watch it again.

There really is a plot to "Sátántangó," and it's an interesting one. We have far too few films that deal with the end of communism in Eastern Europe, and it's a truly fascinating subject. "Sátántangó" does present the problems people face when their way of life changes and examines how communities can come apart.

But all of this gets completely diluted by the painfully monotonous cinematography. There are many beautiful scenes and haunting shots in the film, but because they go on forever, they lose their effect.

Six hours into this "epic," you lose your regard for the Hungarian countryside and start aching for something -- anything -- to happen, like the appearance of strip mall in the middle of a field, where the peasants can see what the future holds for them.

But no, there's still and hour and a half of cinematic root canal to go.

"Sátántangó" could have been a benchmark film about a significant point in European history . . . if the editor had done his job.

The dance with the devil based on novelist László Krasznahorkai's novel about the aftermath of the fall of communism for sure has to rank very high up when it gets to unconventional motion pictures. Filmed in beautiful black and white by Hungarian director Béla Tarr in the early Nineties, the movie consists of twelve parts and lasts seven and a half hours with single tracking shots up to ten minutes, often with very little or only repetitive action on screen. And it rains and rains and rains. Make no mistake: Despite its length Satantango is not an epic narration, but rather achieves long lasting impressions by pointing the camera on banalities inspired by the bleakness of the scenery, perfectly enhanced by the director's choices what to show and how to show it in order to induce a trance-like reaction in the viewer. And while doing so Satantango mesmerizes, shocks, devastates, enthralls.

The time line is a bit unclear and episodes overlap or could have happened the same way at another time. Yet there is a main thread of story about a con-man in the messiah's disguise, a seemingly eternally lasting dance in the very middle, and an essential episode about a little girl representing the core of the film - a symbol of the disillusionment and victim of betrayal, desperately searching for ways to exert some power herself in her forlorn reality. Not that much is happening in Satantango, and some things remain vague, but reality is also transcended at key points adding to the allegorical impact. The aesthetics of the experience and its ultimate conclusion will remain with those who are open for it.

I saw SATANTANGO about ten years ago. At that time, I found it impressive, but quite an ordeal to sit through. But then, years later, I realized I kept thinking back to the images and rhythms of this film. It grows. I also saw other very long movies with very long takes, like TAIGA by Ulrike Ottinger (8 hours) and FROST by Tarr's student Fred Kelemen (4 hours); they didn't work. SATANTANGO stayed with me, like two other films by Tarr, DAMNATION and WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES. Today I consider it as one of the greatest movie experiences I ever had. I do not know how Tarr pulls this off; his most effective takes often seem simple and straightforward. It must be magic. By the way, Gus Van Sant's ELEPHANT uses similar techniques at times (long shots of people walking), and Van Sant acknowledged Tarr's influence.

If there's any proof of god, it's "Satantango", Tarr's impetuous yet melancholic, beautiful and sublime, unforgettable and dark, dark, dark masterpiece which is one of cinema's greatest treasures -- rich with darkness and wonder. At 7 hours long, it is as if it were life itself, and it really is, as everything -- tone, pace, tempo -- is in real time; essentially, it feels, and is, a tango. Tarr, again, demonstrates his mastery through the long take, as it beautifully portrays its subject and feelings of them. It's just such a film one can not even describe in words; it's simple art. This magnus opum of cinema has changed the value of that very term to me. Not many films can do that. I will never forget this film until the day I die, for "Satantango" should be a required viewing -- for everyone.

One has the freedom to choose the right method for them to watch this film, whether completing watching this film in installments, the film has been divided into 12 segments or chapters to guide and help them accomplish that that, or watching this black-and-white film in one sitting to actually immerse oneself with the story. Though the preferred way of watching it for seven-hours-plus uninterrupted helps in a greater appreciation of this Bela Tarr classic because it very much heightens the visceral experience in fully marinating one's consciousness with the characters, the narrative, the space in which the story unfolds, to really almost transport and connect the viewer them to that specific place and time...

If it is true that real masterworks are reached by geniuses only once in their life, but mostly never (cf. Meyrink's "Golem", Gondjarov's "Oblomov", Murnau's "Faust"), one could say that Béla Tarr has already surpassed his horizon line. None of the movies that he made before "Sátánangó" seem to announce this gigantic film, and none of the movies that Tarr has made since reflect it even in details.

However, if one does not agree with what I just wrote, someone could say that the "Werckmeister Hármoniák" is the little brother of Satans' Tango - both formally and from the content. And perhaps, this is true. Like a gigantic black whole with its typical deafening noise the "apparatus" with the fossil fairground presentations comes into the village, a gigantic ghost train which can exist only, if a metaphor has been re-transformed into a flesh-like, nauseating, enigmatic and highly semiotic form. The same happens in "Satantango": The noise starts just at the beginning of the movie, the camera is so slow that it seems to look from where the "apparatus" is coming. Something must be coming, because something is always coming. The silence on the farmland is lethal, people hide, the air will give birth to an even more Pantagruel monster than that in the "Werckmeister". Are these Tarr's "harmonies"? The mechanical noise, creeping into ones bones with its repetitive regularity? It takes a long time until the tango will be there. People are fore-mostly concerned not with preparing the arrival of the Satan, but with trying to anticipate and therefore to inverse the order of reason and effect. Somebody has seen "Irimiás-és-Petrina" - ONE name, the two-fold Satan as opposite to the three-fold Christ. Repetitively over a dozen of minutes the drunk laborer tells one and the same fragment of his story in the local inn: "And I was plodding, and plodding, and plodding, and plodding", always 4 times, thus breaking off the trinity even in the repetition of what has not yet happened.

Like the dance, the "Sátántangó has 6 steps forward and 6 steps back to go. The structure of the movie is similar to a watch. Something must happen because there is always something to happen: (1) The News that They are Coming; (2) We are Resurrected; (3) Knowing Something; (4) The Work of the Spider I; (5) The Net Tears; (6) The Work of the Spider II; (7) Irimiás Speaks; (8) The Perspective, when from the Front; (9) Ascension? Feverdream?; (10) The Perspective, when from Behind; (11) Nothing but Worries, Nothing but Work; (12) The Circle Closes.

The film is a whole gigantic rotating monster whose epicycles imitate a full-length tango forward and backward. A dancing dinosaur represented by the highly suspect couple of Irimiás and his friend Petrina. There is no light, mostly scarce fruitless soil, loneliness in this once gigantic land called Hungary whose extension was between the Styrian Alps in the West and a puddle jump in front of the Black Sea in the East; between the Bohemian Forest in the North and Belgrad in the South. A land so wonderful to loose oneself, an authentic peace of Eastern Europe how it had been described so lovely, so patiently and so seductively by nobody else than Joseph Roth. It does not exist anymore since 1920. In films like Béla Tarr's stroke of genius, it still lives again, for 7 and 1/2 hours. Do what the director is suggesting, do not go to work, but install yourself on your sofa with enough food and most of all drinks. At last then, when the long chapter with the village doctor comes, in an Oscar-worth role played by Peter Berling, you will have this magic movie deeply in your body, you do not even want to get up anymore.

"Satantango" is a Hungarian arthouse film that has been praised for its technical prowess and deep philosophical themes. But let's be real, if you're looking for a good laugh, this isn't the movie for you. Unless, of course, you find joy in watching people walk around in the rain for seven and a half hours.

Yes, you read that right. Seven and a half hours. That's longer than most people's workday. And what do you get for all that time investment? A story about a bunch of miserable characters in a miserable Hungarian village doing miserable things.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for slow cinema and introspective storytelling, but this film takes it to a whole new level. It's like the director thought, "Hey, let's take every depressing thought I've ever had and make a movie out of it. Oh, and let's throw in a few cows for good measure."

So, unless you're a die-hard fan of avant-garde cinema and have a high tolerance for rain-soaked landscapes and existential musings, I'd suggest skipping "Satantango" and finding something a bit more upbeat.

To say this film isn't The Sound of Music is putting it mildly; it is a hard film to like, but for those who love the art of film, easy to admire. I do not love this film, and often did not particularly like it watching it--but I gave it a top rating because it is surely a masterpiece of its kind. Grim, dark, and brutal, Satantango moves at a pace that is almost glacial, but is completely one of a kind, a close examination of a people left behind by a government too busy to notice, left behind by a world beset by technological advances, left behind because nobody cares.

Not one character in this lengthy film is particularly attractive, and in one section we watch for nearly an hour as a local Doctor becomes staggeringly drunk and lurches outside into the mud and the dark to refill his jug.

This film is an immersion into the lifestyle and the textures and the surroundings of a small village in winter, a place where the villagers have put their faith in a man who has clearly decided to leave them in ruins; the film is seven hours long, and frequently a puzzlement. And if you allow yourself to be hypnotized by its dark, careful composition, unforgettable. This is absolutely not an entertainment in the usual sense of the word; be forewarned--but if you want a visual puzzle, an intellectual challenge, and a cinematic world all its own, Satantango is inimitable