Bela Tarr obituary

"Tarr, who has died aged 70, earned the reverence of cinephiles on the basis of a handful of austere, poetic and painstakingly slow black-and-white films including Damnation (1987), Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) and his swansong The Turin Horse (2011). Simple narratives set in remote Hungarian communities were rendered knotty with psychological depth, a sensitivity to loss and desolation, and a near-constant air of foreboding."

"Tarr was known chiefly for his preference for long unbroken takes; Satantango, for instance, begins with an eight-minute shot of cows trudging through mud. It might have lasted even longer if only film stock was not capped at around 11 minutes per reel The worst form of censorship, he lamented. In an age of accelerated editing and enfeebled attention spans, he was unfashionable to say the least."

Bela Tarr created a small but influential body of austere, poetic, and painstakingly slow black-and-white films, including Satantango, Damnation, Werckmeister Harmonies, and The Turin Horse. His work used simple narratives set in remote Hungarian communities and infused them with psychological complexity, loss, desolation, and a pervasive sense of foreboding. Tarr favored long unbroken takes and prolonged shots, using multilayered sound to make the everyday feel epic and nightmarish. Repetition, frustration, and boredom were treated as elements of life, producing oppressive, futile atmospheres in scenes of recurring revelry and stalled escape.

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