Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Jakoba 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.

amolghadi "Cowardice, sinful Impotence" -- Irimiás, an outsider.As the movie opens, a Herd of Cattle is seen wandering aimlessly in the Village. These animals differ not much from the Villagers they symbolize and share the rural air with. The humans here, are living (or rather dying) a life of Hopelessness, Aimlessness and Despair with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.As if to augment villagers' own Woes, there's Mother Nature, hell-bent on grinding, beating the Villagers down with a Catastrophe of it's own: Heavy Torrential Rains that do succeed in hiding the tears of the Villagers, but also succeed in destroying everything that the Villagers have a scarce sense of ownership of, ...including the thin Coats on their stagnant bodies, which perhaps are their Last Resort of Protection.To stave off a certain Madness looming over them and thus to ascertain Psychological Survival, each villager has an elusive escape-route of his/her own: extra-marital affairs, brandy, note-taking, holy books...anything goes by. It's a tragic affair, because not even small children are exempted from this shadow of Pessimism and their Neurotic Behavior is always simmering on the surface. The degree of Despair in the Villagers can be gauged from the fact that they trigger into some kind of blurry action only after a particular Tragedy strikes them and that's because each villager is a Reactive individual, not willing to find solutions himself/herself, but waiting passively and infinitely for some external miracle to show them the way.Each villager has a Personal Story of his own...and a varying Degree of Madness. The Doctor is mad, the Repent inside him not being sufficient enough to offset his Addictions. Kelemen is crazier than the Doctor. But Kelemen, still, may not be as mad as the Madman who tolls the bells of the dilapidated church the whole day, but he is surely on his way there.Thankfully, Irimiás who arrives from outside the village as per the orders of the Law to help the Villagers, is looking for a Redemption from a personal past of his own. If not for the above quoted stinging words that Irimiás describes the villagers with, until their hearts burn, probably they might still have been lying around snoring, exactly like the Doctor believes them to be. But Irimiás has a plan...not a definite one...but nevertheless he has something that he has brought with himself that the villagers don't have: A Sense of Authority, Leadership Qualities ...and a Glimmer of Hope.Can he save the Villagers from their own Pessimism? ...Or will the Heavy Rains succeed in grinding the Villagers down?---- Sátántangó (1994), a Hungarian Drama from the acclaimed director, Bela Tarr.In a way, this movie is strangely ironic in that, we realize that the level of Despair in the atmosphere is at its deepest...but we also know that it cannot get deeper than this and now the only way out, is the way of Rising high up.The background scores by Mihály Víg, play a very important character in themselves and provide a distinct personality to each scene.The technique that makes this movie unique, is that we are witnessing the same Segment of Time from different Point of Views of various characters involved. Each View, arrives at a common point of a specific Revelation that has an immediate impact and then moves onward to that specific character's Individual Arc that again climaxes with a concrete Event.

keithlodge21 No film is a 'masterpiece' if it involved physically torturing an obviously distressed cat for 10 minutes,throwing it around like an object, before wrapping it in a net bag and hanging up, then returning with a saucer of milk which is 'supposed' to have rat poison in it, physically forcing it to drink by pressing it's head down then - in the very same shot - standing by while the cat succumbs to unconsciousness, only for the character to be seen walking around with the corpse of the same cat in the next shot.And - get this - this is not just animal cruelty. A child actor of approximately 12-13 years old performs all these acts for the camera. Christ knows what mental effect it had on her.If this film had been made by a western director, critics would be excoriating it and its director. The only thing this 'masterpiece' reveals is that hypocrisy.

poikkeus Goaded on by curiosity, I saw SATANTANGO at the Pacific Film Archive several years ago. Critics gushed that SATANTANGO was without parallel - but two hours into the movie, I was less than impressed. Very little plot. Black and gray photography. Segments that went on seemingly forever, with no clear point. Much of the audience filed out early, and I left early, too. Was the director, Bela Tarr, trying to make the film an endurance contest? More recently, I consulted the Internet Movie Database to see what was written about SATANTANGO. The cumulative rating of 8.5 of 10 was impressive, as were the write-ups. "A stunning experience," says one viewer. "Biggest cinematic experience in history," says another. The kudos go on and on. But if you scroll down the database, you'll also find the negative reviews. "Self- indulgent, annoying," one writer says. One of the more measured responses is, "I do not regret that I saw this movie, but I certainly to not think it was a day well-spent" - after giving the film a 1 of 10 rating. So, I decided to see the film again - this time on DVD - to determine if my initial dismissal at the PFA was warranted. And I learned how to appreciate a different kind of movie - and even come to enjoy it. My hints to a naive viewer:Calibrate your attention span. The individual takes of SATANTANGO are unusually long; the first scene, set outside a pen for steers and chickens, lasts over eight minutes, with no cuts. Just a single tracking shot. This happens through the entire film; in fact, the long takes and slow tracking shots give the film its rhythm and style. If you go into SATANTANGO expecting a film paced to contemporary standards, you'll be disappointed. If you can, take a few breaks between segments - and ask questions.Learn about recent European history. It's possible to enjoy SATANTANGO on its own merits, but understanding recent history helps greatly. The film dramatizes the economic depression that gripped the break-up of the Soviet blok, and things gone very bad, indeed. There's crumbling infrastructure everywhere. People struggle to get by, just barely, by depending on agricultural collectives (like the one depicted in SATANTANGO). This gray, depressing worldview would eventually engulf the region. Structure, structure, structure. The key to appreciating SATANTANGO lies in understanding the film's structure. Another reviewer here aptly mentioned Akira Kurosawa's RASHOMON, wherein the film's narrative is defined by a single event - told in entirely different ways by the main characters. SATANTANGO uses a similar technique; several characters experience the same segment of time from different points of view. The eight-minute "preface" introduces us to the collective itself - where the barebones infrastructure is shown. From here, each segment of the film is separated by an inter-title; when a new segment starts, we see the same action - from a new character's POV. But nearly every segment involves leaving this wet, cold, impoverished piece of hell - or try to exploit it. Dance "the Satantango." The musical segments can open the way to appreciating and even enjoying SATANTANGO. Music is important for Tarr, and the repeating figures of dance are a metaphor. The tango is a repeating dance that abides by the rule, "one step forward, two steps back." It's reflected in the lives of the characters, who take one step forward in their lives, but always end up two steps back. The "chapters" of the film don't move forward like a typical narrative work; it repeats the same segment of time, over and over again. If you're frustrated by the fact that the movie seems static - that's the point. SATANTANGO is a story that can't move forward; it repeats the same familiar song, over and over - until a development determines a new course of action for the characters.I didn't enjoy SATANTANGO when I saw it the first time, but I've since become a fan. The investment of time may seem extreme to some, but it's more than worthwhile.

terraplane Some words commonly used in reviews of this movie: "It has no plot" "Nothing happens" "It's very long" "It's too long" "Beautiful" "Brilliant" "Masterpiece" "Boring" etc, etc...Every word you read about this movie is true. Including the ones that criticize it.It's not a matter of opinion so much as a matter of fact.Every opinion about this movie is acceptable, there is no right or wrong. Which is something that cannot be said about most other movies.The story of Satantango can be interpreted in many ways, you can make up your own mind.Is it ostensibly about the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, when people in unprofitable collective farms found themselves left without a future, when the milk of human kindness stopped flowing from the abundant teat of the Communist State, when empty ideology finally gave way to grim reality? Possibly. The metaphors abound if you want to look for them.Or maybe it's just a boring story of some boring people in a muddy village who get conned by a bloke they thought was dead, filmed by someone who didn't know when to shout "Cut!"Why should you watch this very long black and white movie, where nothing much appears to be happening, about a group of forlorn and hopeless people living in a broken down village in the middle of nowhere, where it's either windy or raining all the time, waiting for a mysterious and slightly sinister con man to take their money in the hope of a better life?Well, it really depends on you.Few movies can match Satantango for beautiful photography and majestic cinematography. The camera either moves in glorious long tracking shots; slow, circling crane shots and long steadi-cam walking shots or it records long takes from a fixed tripod as the action, or sometimes lack of it, takes place. The few movies that can match it are mostly made by Bela Tarr.Those that say nothing happens are watching from the narrow brief of what happens in other movies, which is that they exist to entertain. Satantango is not one of these.Just as in Tarkovsky's movies, to which Bela Tarr's movies are closely related, time is just as an important dimension as space. Real time, as opposed to edited time fragments chopped together to present a story in non-linear real time representation. In other words, a movie edited to present a complete story in 90 minutes. A beginning, a middle and an end. Satantango is not a complete story. What it portrays begins before we start watching and continues after the cameras stop recording it. We are merely observing the minutiae of everything that happens, just as in real life we observe every moment of our life passing, it cannot be edited.Maybe that's the key to Satantango.Life cannot be edited.Or maybe I'm just another pretentious reviewer who loves beautiful black and white movies like this one.You decide.