What is Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies about? Can it be encapsulated in a word, a sentence, a paragraph? Maybe, but it’d be much too reductive, as it’s about several things at once, and, like many great films, it defies categorization. It is a slow film, and a decently long one (although nowhere near as long as Tarr is capable of); and for audiences whose attentions are too accustomed to hyperactivity on a screen, such resistance, and seeming opaqueness, may very well turn them away altogether.
I recently had the opportunity to watch the 4k Blu-ray restoration of the film released by the Criterion Collection earlier this year, and went in fairly inexperienced with Tarr. Of course, I knew the man by dint of his reputation as one of those European arthouse auteurs who careers in rendering American audiences slack-jawed and dull-eyed. I’d seen the occasional clip, and have even read a novella by his countryman and frequent collaborator the Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai (this film is adapted from a novel of his, The Melancholy of Resistance). Critics I trust laud Tarr’s work, and critics the world over hail him as a Master, so despite my inexperience, I approached my viewing, I admit, fully expecting greatness.
Having now watched Werckmeister Harmonies, I can say that its greatness is evident, although one might be more surprised by how genuinely moving it can be. For all the scenes and moments Tarr builds that resist easy emotional engagement, he is also unafraid to go for the overt gut-punch. Even the opening scene has an enthralling atmosphere to it: in a crowded bar, a young man choreographs a representation of a solar eclipse using the establishment’s drunken occupants. The spare piano score (courtesy of composer Mihály Víg) lends a delicacy to the whole proceeding, and invites us into the mind of the young man, János Valuska, who is the de facto protagonist of the film. It is a truly inspired moment, counterbalancing, somehow, the banality and griminess of the setting with a sense of cosmic profundity.
It also sets up János as not only an artistic type, admired by his fellows, but as a leader of sorts – a view of him that is steadily undermined as he is revealed to be the underling of musicologist and local benefactor György Eszter, as well as an all-around lackey whom the townspeople treat like a child, albeit not without affection. Couple this with a notable social awkwardness, and one is almost baffled that this was the same man from the beginning. But the point is that he possesses something that the townspeople do seem to treasure, however haltingly, and that he is sensitive to the greater workings of the universe, which might explain his closeness to Eszter, who spends his solitary days attempting to re-evaluate the harmonic systems codified by the Baroque composer Andreas Werckmeister.
But to return to the opening question: what is this film about? Dan Schneider claims that not only is the film great, but it is about greatness itself, and how these various characters confront it, or not. This is a cogent take, and is overarching enough to include all the other “smaller” themes that the film tackles. For me, the film is also about occlusion, as we get the sense that these characters are haunted by certain limitations: Eszter seeks to replace Werckmeister’s harmonies but can only seclude himself in his manse and muse into tape recorders; János is fascinated by things greater than himself but seems detached from, and stilted with, the other townspeople; Eszter’s estranged wife, Tünde, can only communicate with him through a go-between, and her relationship with the unstable police chief is…toxic, to say the least.
But probably the most stymied in life are the townspeople (the film is set in some unnamed Hungarian city undergoing a dim postwar ennui), who can do nothing but while away the hours drinking and gossiping and drudging away at their menial jobs. The men, in particular, congregate aimlessly, and thus fall prey to the influence of the Prince, a shadowy cult figure who arrives with a wandering “Circus,” whose other main attraction is the carcass of a whale hauled around in a truck.
All these elements together form the narrative of Werckmeister Harmonies, as János does the bidding of his elders (ever desiring to be in the presence of the dead whale), and the men of the town are gradually caught in the thrall of the Prince via his nihilistic orations.
Pervading the whole film is this sense of something terribly amiss, whether through the fraught dialogue of the citizens or the grim, almost postapocalyptic setting of the city. These people have nothing to do, and nothing, seemingly, to live for: in one of the more gratingly long sequences, János is sent by Tünde to put the drunken police chief’s two sons to bed, and their drumming and caterwauling, while energetic, can only mask the fact of their neglect. It’s an annoying scene, but also somewhat hilarious, and sadder the more one contemplates their noise.
In a way, those abandoned, screaming boys can be seen as avatars of the men in the city, whose interior states might echo a similar raucousness but are otherwise inhibited from expression due to the rules of law and order – that is, until the closing scenes, when convention, already in a necrotic condition, is disregarded and the men rampage through the city. But even then, their expressions remain unrealistically stony; the long take of their march through the streets is a disturbing portrayal of such discord. It is only the appearance of a naked and emaciated elderly man in the infirmary they are ravaging that halts their rage.
Is the old man a reflection of the men’s own spiritual neglect? Does he represent the State, revealed to be as powerless as they are, and not the overbearing force which holds them down? (And does not the dead whale instantly bring to mind Locke’s Leviathan?) More political allegory can be drawn from these materials, I’m sure, but as it’s a field I’m not particularly well-versed in, I won’t continue. But they’re there, all the same, and charge the film with additional symbolic resonance than is already present.
But really, the Werckmeister Harmonies is best seen for oneself, not read about, despite its potential challenges. Again, the film is not very long at all, and while Tarr’s style might be somewhat of an adjustment for the average viewer (I know it was for me), Schneider’s point of the long scenes “compressing” in the mind after viewing is accurate. Take, for instance, the over two-minute-long shot of Eszter and János walking through town. It really is a shot of them simply walking side-by-side silently, but one naturally “edits” the take in recollection, retaining the relevant information (notice how the musicologist’s expression subtly changes – is he dreading the inevitable conference with the town officials? Or is he digesting the young man’s little rhapsody over the significance of the whale?) without having to sacrifice the mesmeric effect(s) of the extended shot length.
Greatness, occlusion, and eclipse: inasmuch as Werckmeister Harmonies is about what it is to be human, it places itself neatly alongside other great works of cinema. It is through its meditation on human limits that distinguishes it from the rest. When János bends down to look into the eye of the dead whale, what exactly is he seeing? Himself, yes, but also what he is not, and what he can never be. When the Prince monologues, only his shadow is witnessed, and he does not speak the language of the country—can they trust his words solely through an interlocutor? And does it matter, when all they really require for their violence is mere excuse? In the end, it’s emptiness that answers, and whatever deeper significance lies hidden in the whale, the Prince, and János’s mind, is left to the mist.
* * *
If you enjoyed this review of Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies, consider supporting our film on a great American poet and get patron-only content on Patreon. This will help the growth of this site, the automachination YouTube channel, and the ArtiFact Podcast. Recent episodes include an analysis of Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign, a dissection of the post-Gaza Middle East, and a comprehensive look at art theory with critic Erik Hill.
More from Ezekiel Yu: Creation, Here and Now: on Henry Beston’s “The Outermost House” (1928), The Brutal Record: On Joe Carnahan’s “Narc” (2002), Leaving, Waiting, (Not) Doing: on Chantal Akerman’s “Je tu il elle” (1974)