Too artistic for its own good, but it still left me curious despite the long shots of not much going on. I saw it since it was on the NYT 1000 movies list. SLC DVD. I also saw it since it was Hungarian and had a good feel to it and the village.

My first film from Bela Tarr; “Werckmeister Harmonies” makes its way to becoming one of my favorite films almost immediately. It’s a thundering masterpiece and what I would consider a perfect film. This is poetic as hell and almost feels hypnotic in a way, it delves itself into the meaning of life in a really great and beautiful way and the way that this was shot… my god. The imagery is captivating, the atmosphere is grim, and the camerawork is flawless.

In a small Hungarian village, the inhabitants eke out a modest living through the sweat of their labor. However, things change drastically when a pseudo-circus arrives in town, replete with the carcass of a whale and a mysterious leader known as The Prince. Filled with symbolism and rich in themes, Bela Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies is a hypnotic journey into a dream-like world of conformity, control and surrender. The film is a visual feast - the lengthy takes (there are apparently only 39 shots over the 145- minute running time) are riveting and the visuals are stunning throughout. Anyone interesting in getting into the world of ‘slow cinema’ should start with something along the lines of Werckmeister Harmonies. Fans of the Fast and the Furious should be warned – this ain’t going to be your type of movie.

Breathtaking long-lens scheduling, combined with small-town story writing that uses a small glimpse of the big picture; it opens with the grandeur of the sun, earth and moon, and ends with a whale that never rests in its eyes; it travels through the crowds of people like wax figures, setting off rational riots, and what people do and All that is going to be done is lies and deception. (If I were not afraid of night walks, I really wouldn't want to miss the school's 4k screening; it's a pity that I don't know Hungarian history)

Extremely boring and very arthouse. I tried so hard to like this...but just couldn't.

The greatest 02 hours: and 25 minutes ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the most poetic movies ever.

this was so fricken boring; it put me right to sleep, i couldn't do it. i feel kind of bad since it has such great reviews from others, but not my cup of tea i guess.

I think this will be the last Bela Tarr film I watch. I just can't handle the slow pace any longer. This is one of his easier films to digest and has a lovely opening scene (one of the top two or three opening scenes I've ever seen - that good) and a great score but by the close of the film, I was delighted it was all over.

Béla Tarr is such a magnificently talented, proficient, important director and screenwriter. But his films are so slowly paced, protracted, and melancholic that it takes a particularly motivated evening to actually sit down and watch one of them. He's like the cinematic equivalent of 19th-century Russian literature. Compared to Tarr's other films, Werckmeister Harmonies goes like a stabbed rat; there's plenty of exceptionally long takes that document relatively little objective change, but the plot moves relatively briskly compared to something like Satantango (but in all fairness, everything looks like it's moving at light speed compared to Satantango). Dialogue is relatively sporadic and restrained, often one-sided; debates are relatively few. But in the lingering space between the sparing dialogue, Tarr creates a blistering critique of political rhetoric, human baseness, ignorance, and corruption - all factors at play behind the political upheaval of midcentury Europe, only expressed through the decaying countenance of a whale and an unseen agitator, the Prince. The rise of uncontrolled, directionless anger as a political tool seems all too relevant in this day and age. The thing is, I seem to go into most Tarr movies actively wanting to dislike them, to point out how unnecessary it is to use four-minute shots or to just punch your auteur card by filming empty space. But he doesn't make it seem redundant, he uses it to hone his point to a razor's edge, and it's as impressive here as in any of his films. It's the kind of film that student films want to be. (4.5/5)

Despite its slow pace, I did appreciate how beautifully shot this movie was, but that's it, I'm not going to give it a free pass just because of its "cult" status, this movie is really plain and boring.

I mostly found this movie to be a pretentious waste of time. The sense of self-worth it must have taken to be sitting there in the editing room watching the footage you shot of a man doing nothing but walking through town for like 10 uninterrupted minutes and then cutting absolutely none of it, it's just difficult to wrap my head around. I get that this is what Bela chose as his signature style and that critics absolutely lapped it up, but for me I just imagine sitting in the audience at the premiere of my languid-paced movie with all my family and friends there and watching them stifle their yawns and check their watches. I think there's plenty of room for a preference of not moving the camera or doing much editing, like in the well-done opening bar scene here where there's plenty going on, but when you can't bring yourself to edit out the parts that provide absolutely no artistic or entertainment value those preferences become glaring flaws. I did like listening to the music theorist's monologue though, and while I would've preferred the movie be in color, I at least thought it was cool when they included shots with bright lightbulbs in them as it made for some interesting lighting dynamics.

Absolutely stunning, complexed and beautiful.

The monster cuts an ordinary community into two unequal parts: those who exploit the weird / are afraid of the weird, and those who measure the weird (musicians and János). The former corresponds to political intrigue and social circumstances, the latter to a very different dimension of the universe. The musician is not interested in monsters, and he tries to restore pure music; János is interested in monsters, he sees the power of pure nature behind them. The riot did not destroy everything, but the pure universe in their minds. By the end of the film, the roles are reversed as the musician becomes the one who delivers the daily meals and offers comfort. This is a metaphor for the preservation of their friendship and hope, even though there is no longer a place for a harmonious universe in the order of the sensory world.

Definitely more art house than horror.

I absolutely hated this. Edited to about half-length it might have been tolerable, but the endless long takes of nothing happening drove me nuts. The critics sure love the emperor's new clothes, though.

Depth: 2/2 Importance: 2/2 Relevance: 2/2 Artistry: 2/2 Imagination: 2/2 Total: 10/10

The dictionary definition of a masterpiece, Werckmeister Harmonies is art at its most expressive, reflecting not only on the need for solidarity and collapse of society, but somehow using a relatively plotless structure to craft a profoundly moving, almost characterless character study.

A new kind of cinematic experience which is profoundly affecting for all the right reasons. Despite the long takes and the bare minimum of plot, the duration of time itself becomes an absolute pleasure in the hands of the talented directors, editor, composer, actors and everyone else concerned. Defiantly non-Hollywood and so much the better for it.

A masterpiece in filmmaking