Watch Werckmeister Harmonies For Free

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Béla Tarr's 2000 film "The Werckmeister Harmonies" deals with troubling events in a small town in Hungarian's eastern plains. After an opening scene showing simpleton postman János demonstrating to a bar full of drunks how the Earth and moon rotated around the sun with the help of three of the old geezers, he does his rounds in the early morning. Posters put up advertise the arrival of a giant whale with special guest, the Prince. This travelling circus, however, fills the townspeople not with eager anticipation but with dread. Indeed, when the Prince does appear, all hell breaks loose.Based on the novel "The Melancholy of Resistance" by László Krasznahorkai, the plot of this film is a transparent allegory for Hungary in the 1930s and 1940s: unable to keep its house in order, and falling for the demagoguery of fascism, Hungary brought on itself its long nightmare of Soviet domination. Tarr has curiously stated, however, that he is not offering us a historical allegory. By that I can only imagine that he is turning the allegory into a parable, using a reference to mid 20th-century Hungary as way of exploring more universal themes. Perhaps the central tension in the film is between a natural order, the ecstatic cooperation of free human beings, and an order dictated by a manipulative leader. I don't want to spoil anything that happens here, but Tarr's depiction of a mob let loose is harrowing.Tarr is truly the heir to Andrei Tarkovsky in treating filmmaking as "sculpting in time". "The Werckmeister Harmonies" was expertly filmed in 39 long, carefully composed shots. These carefully crafted visuals demand a high-definition release, though unfortunately one is not yet available as I write this.I was very moved by this film the first time I saw it, and on repeat viewings there has been much to appreciate. However, there is one painful flaw for me: Tarr's decision to use German actors for two main roles. Lars Rudolph, who plays János, and Fassbinder mainstay Hanna Schygulla as the sinister "auntie Tünde" give physically commanding performances, but they were presumably speaking in German while acting, and Tarr has had them clumsily dubbed into Hungarian, no synchronization between their mouths and the voices.However, if you are interested in auteur cinema, and certainly if you have enjoyed other films by this director, then I would recommend seeing "The Werckmeister Harmonies". There are scenes in this film that will remain with you as long as you live.

A small town. A drunk room; a rather dreary bar with two big lights hanging from the ceiling. Village simpletons falling all over the floor with an overdose of drinks. "You tubs of beer"..the bartender calls them! At closing time, a wide-eyed, gaunt, but seemingly popular young man walks in. He is Janos Valuska (Lars Rudolph). He uses the drunks at the bar as props and demonstrates the Solar Eclipse and the effects of this phenomenon on the behavior of the mortal beings of the earth. The scene lasts for the first 10-12 minutes and ends with a melancholic, haunting score by Mihaly Vig. This single scene is so beautiful, it sets the tone for what's to come.There is a shroud of ambiguity over Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies" (co-directed by Ágnes Hranitzky). There is communication that is very vague. Things are spoken about something bad that happened before and something terrible that's perhaps about to happen. And in some towns, they say it has already begun. Is it the advent of the apocalypse? At the center of this mystery is a stuffed giant whale, a part of a "circus" that has arrived in town. This circus also features the enigmatic "Prince". With the coming of the whale and the Prince there is suddenly a 'lack of harmony' within the quietude of the town. Foreigners have started encroaching. There are stories that they have started rioting and looting. The whale is perhaps the reason. Most people seem to regard the whale as an abomination. Only Janos sees it as a bounty of nature, a miracle of God...Janos is clearly an optimist. Or is it the Prince who is behind all the turbulence? There are all kinds of stories. The dead whale and the Prince are somehow responsible for creating ripples in the otherwise still waters of the quiet little town. They have already spread their wings on other parts of the country. But are all these just urban legends? One of the main characters, György Eszter (Peter Fitz), speaks about how the musical intervals and harmonies as we know them over the centuries are "false" and the result of a huge scandal brought about by a certain Andreas Werckmeister. The title alludes to the harmonies or lack thereof owing to some funny business brought about by Werckmeister as a result of an "unhinged arrogance" that wished to take possession of the natural harmonies of the Gods! This one scene and the philosophy within has a strong connection with the overall theme of the film...lack of harmony and how it is brought about! Eszter's former wife Aunt Tunde (Hanna Schygulla) has an agenda of her own...she is out to initiate a "clean town" project with the help of her current lover, the Police Chief, for which she needs her former husband's help. "Our Janos" (as he is referred to by all townsfolk who like him) is entrusted the task of convincing Eszter to use his command and popularity to get support of the movement. Eszter reluctantly agrees. "I've paid for it and I may pay for it all my life", he says. But what exactly? Tarr doesn't think that is important. We never get to know. He clearly loves ambiguity.Tarr also loves extremely long takes, stark Black and White cinematography (beautiful at that), a somber mood, melancholic score, a languorous pace, bleak imagery and an overall sense of doom and despair. There are long philosophical monologues which are almost poetic and need to be heard at least twice to grasp. There is a distinct "meditative" feel to the proceedings. It is not difficult to spot the heavy Andrei Tarkovsky influence here, just as in other films of his. But Tarr's pictures are less abstract than those of the great Russian filmmaker. "Werckmeister Harmonies" is mostly materialism heavy but there certainly is some symbolism embedded in the narrative. The "Prince" who travels with the whale, for example, is a mysterious faceless creature who seems to have immense powers. A clock that was dead for years started ticking again as he went past! And he apparently also incites rioting. He doesn't believe in any greater power or authority either. Is he then the "Prince of darkness" with a thirst for destruction? Tarr demonstrates his ability to create a powerful impact through the marriage of visuals and sound. On one hand there is the scene in which Vig's soulful music accompanies, like Janos appreciating the whale and being awestruck by its enormity. And then there is the scene in a newspaper factory. Long monologues and ambient sounds serve as a background to Janos' mundane activities being filmed, and later the camera slowly pans to the person delivering the monologue! Then, of the several long tracking shots, a particular shot of Janos and Eszter walking adjacent to each other in an almost synchronized march of their feet (with only the sound of their feet and a lunch box providing the sound...carrying on for a good 2-3 minutes!) can't help but bring a smile on your face. Apparently, for one other scene, in which a lot of people are marching together to reach a destination, Tarr was asked why the scene is that long. Tarr simply answered "that's how long it took to get there!" "Werckmeister Harmonies", like any other Bela Tarr film, is surely not for the impatient viewer. It is for that segment of film lovers who love their films grave; and who don't mind the scenes playing out real time, with the editing process being allowed to take the back seat as long as the final product delivers. Suffice to say, Tarr manages to engulf the viewer under his spell and guarantees a hypnotic audiovisual experience, one that culminates into a powerful ending that leaves a lasting impact....Score: 10/10.

How to engage emptiness, visually? This is the most tasking difficulty that I know of in film, for both the filmmaker and viewer. You cannot merely look - sitting still is not meditation - it needs to be a particularly sharpened but effortless way of looking. Seeing things without the person that sees obscuring the view.Only the Buddhist have adequately solved this to my mind, by tying into an actual practice of purging the self so that we got a work, a painting, poem or flower arrangement, that was itself an act of meditation. But they had centuries ahead of them to refine. In film, I can always count on Bela Tarr for a vision of formative emptiness, and ways to engage that emptiness as a space for contemplation. No doubt he has studied Mizoguchi for the 'mono no aware' of a transient sorrowful world, itself derived from the Buddhist eye. And even more Tarkovsky, in more explicitly adopting his omniscient camera for the reflections. The gloomy darkness he surrounds it with no doubt comes from Eastern Europe as churned from the broken machinery of decades old communism. It is implicit in everything he does, always iron cast in punishing ways. At least this part doesn't require any more comments I feel. The impressions of abstract horror are from a life lived.So it is a dark world rolling into the night that we are given here, from the memory of it, a kind of nightbound universe. How to struggle from our end? Why, most importantly, why even admire the great whale, if the whole is nothing?Of course, it is nothing less than simple honesty on Tarr's part for presenting a world as he does, as we know historically up to now. For the most, it is the Prince that humanity has been the most eager to hear, someone to incite change. There is no time to see the great whale whose body encompasses the world, the wonder of that emptiness that can generate form of such awesome beauty. The only thing that has power to halt the rampaging mob then is a vision of their own mortality.So in several ways, one is tempted to imagine a kinship between him and Trier; an encounter with the void, and human wretchedness in the face of that encounter. But I posit Tarr to be a wiser filmmaker, especially here.Look how he opens the film for example, a magnificent round-up even more pertinently addressing now, our microcosmic cycle mirrored from above, with humans dancing into position of the spheres. This is a filmmaker who understands. The only problem; the Nietzchean dismay he seems to have resigned himself to. The last bit of news is that he has decided to stop making films altogether. His worldview is a bleak one, no doubt.But it's an honest dismay, a way of confessing that he knows there will be light again in principle but can't seem to see any. It's a profoundly human despair, how he wearily examines the broken whale at the end. So the problem remains, one of embodying a world where, by simply existing, we are negations of that primal void. Isn't that what we're taught? So how to embrace the great whale then?The film ends here. It falls on us to see beyond the dark, and see if we can embrace the whale by seeing that the whole and nothing is the one.

Werckmeister Harmóniák is an interesting case. Like much of Bela Tarr's work, it comes enshrouded with a controversy in its native Hungary, its release considered difficult due to its political commentary.The simple plot, in line with the director's belief in the minimalisation of storyline, offers us a Hungarian village suspicious of a circus boasting a stuffed whale and a rebellious orator, known only as "The Prince". Happening upon this film just as it begun late one night on television, I was drawn into the wonders of the strange and mysterious film. I was instantly mesmerised and captured by the opening scene. The music, described almost unanimously as "hauntingly beautiful", plays no small part in this ensnaring effect. There is something deeply mysterious in this strange scene, Mihály Víg's incredible score mixing with the disharmonious movements of the drunken villagers as they, like the viewer, are drawn into the effulgence and mystique of our main character, Janós Valuska's explanation of our solar system, and the apocryphal beauty of the solar eclipse. Infinitely and instantly captivating, this scene sets the tone for the film, the concepts of doom and beauty, and their potential for intermingling, explored in incredible fashion by Tarr's camera work, and the fluidity of his direction. Quite simply, Werckmeister Harmóniák is a deeply beautiful and often moving film, many of its scenes steeped in mystery and allegorical explorations of themes, particularly the nature of humanity. Encompassed within the film is the most strangely evocative scene I have had the privilege of witnessing, the expatiation of which I shall refrain from to avoid spoiling its poignancy and striking power.My first viewing of the film, the accidental coincidence of its appearance on television and my watching, fascinated me sufficiently to facilitate its immediate purchase, and the subsequent purchase of Tarr's entire catalogue. It is a film I openly admit to not fully understanding, a factor I greatly appreciate, further viewings now made all the more anticipated and the opportunities for such eagerly awaited. Inexpressibly recommended to anybody open minded enough to not frown at the prospect of a 145 minute black and white Hungarian film, Werckmeister Harmóniák may well be the finest film I have yet seen.