Some believe Béla Tarr’s seven-hour Sátántangó (NYFF, ‘94) was the last masterpiece of 20th Century European cinema. Here the Hungarian master brings his formidable stylistic arsenal — a combination of impossibly choreographed camera moves, astonishingly precise chiaroscuro lighting, and hypnotic wordless scenes—to bear on a Georges Simenon thriller about a railway switchman who retrieves a suitcase filled with stolen money. Tarr is a spellbinder, and the wharves and alleys of the unnamed port where he sets this drama of guilt and greed are broodingly apocalyptic. The Man From London is the latest example of an utterly distinctive vision, baleful and radiant, as voluptuous as it is bleak.
Hungary/France/Germany
Sun Sep 30: 1
Wed Oct 3: 6
Read an interview with Bela Tarr here
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