Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
Flyerplesys
Perfectly adorable
LouHomey
From my favorite movies..
MagyarRose
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.
Lemmonio Boreo
it would be about time that so-called "artistic" goals stopped being achieved by using animal turture. This movie uses this little "nice" trick and every time i see that in movies i think: is it REALLY needed it? does it REALLY add value to the movie? but especially, i think: what is wrong with Bela Tarr and all those directors who speculate on the lives of animals for a movie's sake? And btw im not a PETA guy... What is wrong with all you people giving 10 stars to this marathon of stale cinema? It's true that the movie has something appreciable and quite rare to find compared to what can be found by the average movies nowadays, but I also think after reading most of the comments. it's been WAY WAY WAY OVERVALUED..FAR FROM A MASTERPIECE... Let's face it.. all that length was not necessary... 5 in my opinion.
Artimidor Federkiel
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.
norman-42-843758
I am giving this film high points, not as some have suggested because I want to be in with the in crowd but because I really enjoyed it and even after a month of seeing it I am still thinking of the significance of various parts.In my view, the reason the film is so long is because Bela Tarr wanted the viewer to be the characters, to feel what it is like to live their lives, squalor and all and not simply be a voyeur to the unfolding of the storyline as in other conventional films. The reason I don't in this case have a problem to give spoilers is that the Police Captain's speech when Irimias and Petrina are summoned before him is the heart of the matter for most of what follows. It is listed above in the Memorable Quotes section but so you don't have to go looking for it I will C&P it here."Captain: Not that human life was so highly valued. Keeping order appears to be the business of the authorities, but in fact it's the business of all. Order. Freedom, however, has nothing human. It's something divine, something... our lives are too short for us to know properly. If you're looking for a link, think of Pericles, order and freedom are linked by passion. We have to believe in both, we suffer from both. Both from order and freedom. But human life is meaningful, rich, beautiful and filthy. It links everything. It mistreats freedom only... wasting it, as if it was junk. People don't like freedom, they are afraid of it. The strange thing is there is nothing to fear about freedom... order, on the other hand, can often be frightening." This is so profound that most of the important themes in the film flow from this short speech. Probably the most important one is the observation (paraphrased) that people like the concept of freedom but they don't actually like to be free. It is usual to hear that people who, to one degree or another, live under oppression want to throw off the yoke of whatever system it happens to be but when they actually have their freedom they don't know what to do with it. In the film there is much talk about clearing off with the money from the sale of the farm, either fairly or unfairly divided and living lives of their own making. What follows is that Irimias appoints himself as the group's leader and everybody falls in line thus voluntarily placing themselves in a hierarchy.The other major theme from the Captain's speech is this. "But human life…..links everything". Every living thing is connected to every other living thing. Do you remember the voice over following the little girl's death? It talked of this connection existing between her mother; her brother who cheated her out of her savings; the cat the doctor and herself and she knew that after she was dead her angels would protect her. We then move forward towards the end of the drunken scene where we are presented with the analogy of the spider weaving a web over all of the drunken people. If a single strand in the web moves then the spider knows. In real life this could be a look backwards to the operating methods of the KGB. Also forwards to such things as the Patriot Act which legalised wire tapping and social networks like Facebook which was conceived by the CIA to farm information about individuals which could not be found in any other way.If someone has control over another living thing then they use that power without remorse. Examples of this are the little girl and the cat; Irimias and the group and the police captain and Irimias. Compare this in real life to what happened in the Stanford prison experiment.Without self discipline and left to their own devices people will become immoral. Examples of this are Irimias representing some unwholesome elitist class; the Schmidts planning to abscond with the money; The little girls brother stealing her savings; Mrs Schmidt with Futaki; the little girl's mother, no different to the cattle in the farmyard. The Police captain using Irimias for spying; the police gathering apparently useless information; the doctor's spying.We should be on our guard to beware of false prophets of hope. In the film this was represented by Irimias and Petrina. When the silver tongued Irimias gave his speech he moved seamlessly from "This event is tragic beyond all comprehension" to "You can achieve a better life by giving me your money". In everyday life I would include most off planet redemption religions together with our political leaders who by and large represent themselves first, lobbyists second and for the represented they do just enough to get re-elected.Beware of false prophets of doom. The man banging on the pipe in the ruined church shouting "The Turks are coming" when there were quite clearly no Turks in any direction.My interpretation of the incredibly sad final scene is that if this is the way we choose to group as a society, sandwiched between false prophets of hope and false prophets of doom and without any self discipline then there is no light at the end of the tunnel. if people had self discipline combined with freedom and self order, as the police Captain suggests, there would be no need for authority but since they don't they are confused between these false prophets of hope and false prophets of doom, therefore all attempts to continue as a workable society are ultimately bound to fail.
