One thought on “Notes on Bela Tarr’s Satantango”

1. The film is known for its time-consuming takes, where very little seems to be happening. For example, we might see a character(s) walking down a dirt road, and that might take several minutes. Moviegoers have some justification to question the value and meaning of this.

   I’ll provide two responses to this, drawing partly on a 2019 Mubi interview with Tarr.

   First, my sense is that Tarr’s approach makes the film somewhat like a collection of paintings, organized into a loose narrative, which is (obviously) very different from most movies. In the interview Tarr touches on this:

   “Time, anyway, is a part of our life. Time and space, and you cannot ignore it. I know most of the films are ignoring time, because they are just going through the storyline, they are just telling the story: action, cut, action, cut, action, cut, and making it clear to us what is happening. But we don’t know what is happening in the world, really. And I am interested in the world, not just in filming it.

   Here, I interpret him to mean that he wants to infuse the film with a natural sense of time, whereas the story supersedes and tramples over time in most films. There’s also a quote that reveals the reason this was especially important in this film. The interviewer asks Tarr about the sense of time in the low-lands, and this is Tarr’s response:

   Hey man, if you are sitting in the Hungarian lowlands, I’m sure it’s the same in the desert in, let’s say, Arizona, when you are out there: there is no time, no distance anymore, you can go hours, weeks, and you don’t see anything. You are out of time; you have a different sense of time then when you are living in a town. And so, the slowness of the drama came from this. You know, you have to understand that first you have to know the life of the places and then afterwards you have a feeling for how you have to film it.

   I think this provides a justification for his “slow” approach, but this justification wouldn’t make the approach appealing or tolerable to viewers. I would respond to such viewers by recommending they approach the film as if they were going to museum–except in the film the “paintings” incorporate movement–movement of living things, nature, and even the camera. But ultimately, like paintings, the scenes need time, not quick scanning, to be fully appreciated and enjoyed. And, again, I think the scenes function more like paintings that a movie. One might ask if the “paintings” are any good in this movie–are they good, or even great works of art? I would say they are. If you like beautiful black-and-white photography, you will find a lot to like in this film. If you don’t like black-and-white photography, and you don’t like going to museums, then I think, the chances of enjoying this film is close to zero.

   Reply