Verdammnis

I watch Bela Tarr's films over again with endless fascination. The length is not a problem: No longer that many pieces of music. If you can concentrate through a Wagner opera and I hope you can, then a Tarr film is not very long. All the films are very much products of team work but lead by an autocratic man who knows exactly what he wants, hence the seam free quality of the experience, It is that, rather than the length which requires the concentration. I have not found it mentioned often enough but there is much humour in his films, Karrer does a reprise of Gene Kelly, which is then itself parodied near the end of the film. Damnation is maybe still my favourite, I suppose for the mesmerising way sound is used to structure a complex web of association, but then all of the available late films has so much to offer