Director: Bela Tarr
Set in a black-and-white world that is so bleak and depressing that it almost seems post-apocalyptic, this movie can be difficult to watch. The characters in the movie all have no aim in life and are completely dissatisfied, and the depressed nature of humans is reflected in the visuals and the production design. This is not a movie someone can watch at any moment in time, this is definitely a film you must be in the mood for. It is incredibly well made, the formalist style reflects the films themes greatly, but those themes do not seem to be all that engaging.
But Tarr's style is phenomenal, and the way the gloom and doom of the characters comes across is sometimes brilliant. Animals, rain, garbage, and broken buildings are all used to capture the pointless beast-like existence survival of the human characters, and Tarr's slow camerawork and black-and-white imagery all feels appropriately dark and bleak. I may not have gotten everything I could have gotten out of this film in one viewing, because there are philosophical ideas buried deep within the film, especially through the indirect and sometimes difficult to decipher dialogue. But that promise of something deeper about the human condition will definitely bring me back.
Grade: B
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