Satantango

FACETS
Street: July 22
Prebook: now
> Mesmerizing Hungarian classic finally gets an official U.S. release.

Though it’s adapted from and structured like a novel, this hypnotic 1994 masterpiece of modern cinema works best if viewed in a single sitting. The plot, concerning two days in the life of a small farming community being hoodwinked by a con artist (Mihály Vig), is hardly the point. Instead, Hungarian stylist Béla Tarr focuses his attention on behavior and space … a lot of space. His lengthy takes and taste for long-shot compositions ensure that the film will most certainly alienate those who attempt to watch it on anything smaller than a conventional-sized monitor. Facets’ superb restoration of Satantango is supplemented by three shorter Tarr films, which serve as good intros to his deceptively simple-looking technique, including a stripped-down virtuoso TV version of Macbeth (1982) shot in two miraculous “long takes.”

Shelf Talk: Satantango is a commitment for retailers, but one that will have the same long shelf-life as other “cinematic mountains,” such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and Edgar Reitz’s Heimat. Gus Van Sant has publicly trumpeted his respect for Tarr and mimicked the style of Satantango in his Elephant and Last Days, but the closest point of comparison are the demanding (and richly rewarding) works of Andrei Tarkovsky, Aleksandr Sokurov, Robert Bresson and Theodoros Angelopoulos.