lasttimeisaw Admittedly it is daunting to start watching my very first Béla Tarr's works (with his wife and longtime editor Ágnes Hranitzky credited as the co-director), who has already retreated to a permanent retirement in filmmaking after THE TURIN HORSE (2011), as his oeuvre is mostly notorious for stirring audience's usual viewing habits with long takes exceedingly overstay their length of tolerance, a mixed anticipation and perturbation has overtaken me when I selected his lesser praised 2007 feature as the very first introduction piece, rarely I was in such a state before even embarking on the ritual of watching a film.I would be dishonest if I say that the opening 13-minutes long take doesn't put me into a split second of slumber severe times, but how can anyone not to be flabbergasted by its solemn chiaroscuro grandeur, rigorously composed to illustrate a key event without spoon- feeding what is happening to audience, it is a paradigm-shifting innovation deserves admiration and endorsement, and more impressive in Tarr's long takes are not counter- narrative, in fact, he meticulously orchestrates the narrative within the long-takes, invites audience to be fully aware of our own self-consciousness towards the happenings on the screen during the overlong shots, particularly when framing at the back of characters' heads or the ones linger on characters' facial expressions as if they are tableaux vivants after the dramatic occurrences.Once I passed the early stage of maladjustment, the film tends to be rather galvanising (an accomplishment should also be ascribed to composer Mihály Vig's resounding score with accordion or pipe organ), adapted from Belgian writer Georges Simenon's 1934 French novel 1934 L'HOMME DE LONDRES, Tarr transmutes the thrilling plot to an existential quest of our protagonist Maloin (Krobot), who has incidentally discovered a windfall after witnessing a murder during his night shift as a switchman in a French-speaking port town where a harbour and the wagon station are conveniently located with each other. The subsequent storyline involves the investigation of a senior detective Thompson (Lénárt) from London and domestic wrangles with his overwrought wife Camélia (Swinton) when he splurges their money wantonly, plus the British murderer Brown (Derzsi) is very eager to get the money back. Tarr avoids any choppy development devices to pander for audience's attention span, he cooks up an equivocal scenario in the end, we never know the critical event happened inside the hut (Brown's hideout) as Tarr's camera fixates itself firmly outside the hut with its door closed, and regarding to Maloin's following behaviour, after knowing his character for almost 2-hours, each of us can give various motivations contingent on our viewings of the incident Tarr ingeniously chooses not to show us. The film is infamous also for the suicide of its producer Humbert Balson in 2005, just before the shooting due to the apparent financial burdens of Tarr's hefty Corsican setting, so the reality check is even grimmer than the formidable fiction. What can I say? My gut feeling tells me I'm officially on board with Tarr's filmic methodology and all the trappings, his sui generis aesthetic language soundingly enshrines his filmography into the lofty tier of contemporary auteurism and maybe one day he will curtain his retirement and surprise us if inspiration strikes!

morfax12 Self-indulgent, boring piece of garbage; the worst sin a director can commit. This is the slowest, least interesting attempt at film-making that I have ever seen. I'm sure the co-directors/ "writers" must have sat through the rushes by themselves and patted themselves on the back. I don't see how the other cast and crew could sit with them and keep straight faces. I can't believe there are people who fund this garbage; they must have money to burn. I only wish I'd seen the reviews before paying to rent it. Although I'd be even more upset if I had paid to see it in a theatre. Did I see correctly? Did this garbage actually get some kind of award at Cannes?

dbdumonteil If you are FRench ,first thing to bear in mind is that this is the second version of Georges Simenon's novel .This is not to say it's a "remake" for the two versions are as different as they can be.But it must be written that Henry Decoin's movie(1) was made in the darkest hour of the Occupation in 1943 ,and produced by the Continental ,a German firm ,so the writers had to deal with the censorship.What am I driving at?simply that at the time,there was no need to create a nightmarish atmosphere (although Decoin succeeded in doing so) for the nightmare was all around.Compared to the "modern" version ,the old one may seem conventional (but please give it a try if you can ) .This one looks like a nightmare with its stark black and white ,its interminable fixed shots ,its lugubrious music -sometimes a simple accordion tune looks like Tangerine Dream or even Nico music - its actors whose performances are so overblown it's almost unbearable .The movie is very long and I must admit that ,If I did not know the plot,I would have got lost since the first reel.The lines are few and far between and it sometimes recalls films of the silent age this side of German Expressionismus.Bela Tarr refuses any suspense ,any show (the scene in the cabin by the sea is revealing:close shot on a padlock).The atmosphere is much more important than the detective story ;even the social comment which was present in Decoin's movie (If only my son could get into Ecole Polytechnique) gets totally lost in the treatment, deliberately so of course ;this man does not really want to get by ,his wife is a shrew ,his daughter is ugly and all the furs in the world can't change that .The characters melt into the background .(1) "L'Homme De Londres"

Harry T. Yung I watched this film in the Hong Kong International Film Festival where director Bela Tarr, in a brief appearance to an audience of close to 1,000 before the film started, graciously thanked them for coming to watch "a tragedy in black and white" while there are so many vying choices to spend the evening. He then pleaded with the audience (indeed he used the word "beg") to, while watching the film, think of the people therein not just as characters in a film but as real people who well deserve our sympathy despite their shortcomings. It's not for me to second guess the master auteur, but I just thought that because some of his admirers focus so much on his inimitable style and awe-inspiring technique, perhaps he wished to remind them that there is certainly a lot more to his work.I confess that I have only watched one of the master's films, "Panelkapcsolat" (Prefab people) (1982), one of his earliest work and the first one in which he used professional actors. Depicting the strife and frustration of a working-class family, that film was a harsh reminder of how unpleasant life could be, whether by destiny or by choice. After his widely acclaimed "Werckmeister harmoniak" (2000), his loyal followers had to wait seven years for another full-length feature, "The man from London", which was received with mixed feelings. Some view the noir crime story as a welcomed attempt to be more accessible to the general audience. Others do not like the master's departure from his social and spiritual (not in a religious sense) agenda.But first of all, the stunning visual is probably still the dominating aspect of this film. Coincidentally, I've very recently watched, belatedly, Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" (1980) and posted an IMDb comment with a summary line "Does Kurosawa really need colour". I am certainly happy that Bela Tarr didn't. The mood created with the marriage of black and white and long shots is absolutely unique, which nobody else can offer. The torturously (or delightfully, depending on the viewer's perspective) long (12 minutes) opening shot from railroad worker Maloin's POV from his monitoring tower will be the talk among Tarr admirers for a long time to come. My particular favourite however is the shot of the protagonist's walk to a store to take his daughter home from an exploitative employer. This one is only a few minutes SHORT, but the camera angle is as close to magical as anything you can find on a movie screen. And one must always remember that there is no editing or cutting in these long shots throughout the film. Come to think of it, the film does not require editing – a good way to cap the budget? As mentioned, "The man from London" has a plot, a simple one. In the opening sequence mentioned above, we see how Maloin (mostly through his own POV) witnesses a murder and fishes out a briefcase with sixty thousand pounds. The story then develops along two lines: investigation by an inspection from London and Maloin's internal struggle and family problem (Maloin's wife is played by Tilda Swinton, whose appearance unfortunately is close to being cameo). There are other supporting characters, including the murderer and his wife.Heeding the director's opening remarks, I did pay attention to the characters. One review I subsequently gleaned, talking about the protagonist's misguided greed, compares him to the character played by Billy Bob Thornton in the Coen Brothers' "The man who wasn't there" (2001). But despite my conscious effort to relate to the characters, I found myself mesmerized by the auteur's style and technique above all.