This is my last Balkland Cinema essay for my masters course. I'm pretty chuffed with the mark, which was 68%.
At the minute I'm trying to write my dissertation on French Cinema. I'm really starting to hate it.
Werckmeister Harmonies – gloom-laden metaphysics or a brilliant exploration of the human and social condition? Discuss. Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr, (2000) follows the arrival of a travelling circus including a whale and an unknown ‘Prince’ to an unnamed small provincial village, and the anarchy and destruction that takes over the inhabitants of the village and followers of the circus. The film is based on the novel The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai.
In the film we see the world through Janos Valuksa’s eyes. We follow him as he completes his daily tasks; posting the mail, stoking Mr. Eszter’s fireplace to heat water and collecting Mr. Eszter’s lunch. Janos is the main carer for Mr. Eszter; an elderly gentleman and music theorist studying the work of Andreas Werckmeister. Janos is also a source of entertainment to the village drunks in a local bar; describing a solar eclipse and using the drunks as awkward props. Janos appears to be well educated; he understands the solar eclipse and can explain it in rudimentary terms to drunks in a bar, he also posts letters and newspapers around the village; giving him an important role within the small community. Although he appears quite intelligent, Janos also seems shy and self-conscious, and easily manipulated by those who would take advantage of him, such as Tunde; Mr. Eszter’s estranged wife. Janos lives alone and is rarely seen with anyone but Mr. Eszter throughout the film. Janos also appears quite religious, even with his knowledge of eclipses; he talks about god’s majesty in creating the great whale and talks about god when describing the eclipse at the start of the film.
The Prince and the whale that arrive in the village are part of a circus attraction that has gained many followers and many rumors along the way; some blaming the Prince for destruction and death, others blaming the inanimate whale. Rumours about the whale and Prince are first told in the post office; the women swapping between which party (the Prince or the whale) they think is to blame, the women also discuss the problems within their society.
Middle aged men who have followed the Prince and whale stand around the carriage near fires; these men are the main instigators of the violence that takes place later in the film; marauding through the village and hospital attacking the sick until a most abrupt and unexplained stop. The Prince is never shown on screen, and the only time he is presented to us as the audience is in the form of a shadow on the wall, the rest of the Prince’s illusion is just hearsay and rumour. The Prince doesn’t speak Hungarian and his commands and opinions are translated for the rest of the Hungarian speaking cast.
There are several women present in the film, but only Tunde, Mr. Eszter’s ex-wife, exercises control over events in the film, first over Janos and Mr. Eszter, then over the police captain and then finally over the army commander in the city after the hospital attack.
The film uses long takes to show what is happening. A steady-cam is used in almost all of the scenes, providing the film with an eerie voyeuristic gaze of the insanity that unfolds within the space of the film. The film is shot in black and white; adding to the hopelessness of the characters and making the film seem very stark and gloomy, which is re-represented in the characters. There is very little music used in the film also, only two pieces are used, which are both variations of the same arrangement.
In this essay I will analyze the film, looking at the issues it raises concerning human and social politics and the relationship between them. I will also discuss the use of metaphysical imagery and metaphor in the film, discussing the use of the whale and Prince.
Firstly, I will discuss the character of Janos Valuska, the main protagonist in the narrative.
The first scene of the film opens in a bar populated by drunks. The first shot is of a fire being extinguished in the bar. The image of the extinguished fire and the drunks falling off chairs and generally wandering around aimlessly works almost like a metaphor for the inhabitants of the town; their fire (or hope) has been extinguished and they have nothing left to live for. The town itself seems to be populated entirely by old men; the only people under fifty we see are Janos and the police captain’s sons, enforcing the idea that the town is dead, there is nothing there. The extinguishing of the fire could also be a metaphor for the battle between light and dark in the film, as Jeremy Heilman notes in his critique of the film at MovieMatyr.com (http://www.moviemartyr.com/2001/werckmeister.htm) the thematic element of dark versus light or good versus evil is prominent through the film, whether in the portrayal of the characters such as Janos and Tunde, or the metaphor of the Prince and the whale. The theme of dark versus light is also the subject of the first scene. In the first scene we are introduced to Janos, the main protagonist of the story. Janos makes his first appearance by being coaxed into explaining a solar eclipse to the drunks in the bar; using them as props. The language used by the drunks appears to show that this isn’t the first time Janos has told them about eclipses, and this may almost be a routine drinking game for them; a woman in the post office where Janos works asks him if everything is fine with the cosmos, implying that she has witnessed or heard about Janos’ evening activities.
The eleven minute opening shot not only introduces us to our main character, but also sets the mood of the film; the ‘ghost’ town where the scene is set, populated by old drunk men and very few women. Even the men who follow the Prince and circus to the town are of a certain age and not particularly young.
Although the opening scene appears like a disparaging comment on the state of the town, I find that Janos’ speech is rather hopeful; the total eclipse that will cover the town only lasts a few minutes, and after the madness experienced in those minutes has subsided everything will be ok again, as Janos says; “…but no need to fear. It's not over. For across the sun's glowing sphere, slowly, the Moon swims away. And the sun once again bursts forth, and to the Earth slowly there comes again light, and warmth again floods the Earth. Deep emotion pierces everyone. They have escaped the weight of darkness”.
The first scene establishes the use of the voyeuristic camera work employed throughout the film; within the eleven minute scene there are no cuts or edits, and the camera moves freely in between the drunks and Janos. Tarr has claimed that the restriction of eleven minutes on standard Kodak film is “a form of censorship” (Williams, (2003), Online), the use of such long roaming scenes (the entire film is only made up of thirty nine shots) may ostracize viewers more familiar with faster paced and less ideologically heavy pieces of film art. These types of shots and films have established Tarr as almost ‘anti-Hollywood’; tackling obscure subjects in many of his films; making ‘…bleak statements about the state of humanity…slow takes of crumbling walls and seemingly dispassionate contemplation of human violence and despair,’ (Iordanova, (2003), p154) using extremely long takes and creating extremely long films, as well as casting unknown actors, the most well known in Werckmeister Harmonies being Lars Rudolph; the man playing Janos.
The use of an almost constant gaze of the camera effectively closes off the rest of the world to the audience, in standard films the use of cutting and editing makes the focus of the film seem a lot wider when compared with Werckmeister Harmonies. The camera acts like an eye focused on Janos and his life in the town; wherever Janos goes, we as the audience follow. Only when Janos has lost his mind does the film seem to open out, probably because Janos is not in shot and we are allowed to see another point of view; that of Mr. Eszter.
Janos appears to get on well with the village inhabitants where he lives; he addresses most of the older generation as ‘Uncle’ or ‘Aunt’ and seems to know more or less everyone, which could be because of his job as a postman.
Janos is also the first character in the film to go and see the whale; in fact he is the first to see it arrive in the town; as Janos is returning home after completing his posting route we see the massive silver case containing the whale start to engulf the small houses in its shadow, perhaps foreshadowing the destruction and violence the whale and Prince bring with them. “When the massive truck carrying the giant whale that is the sideshow’s main attraction arrives, it seems to dwarf the town, stopping the light from reaching anything that it passes by,” (Heilman, (2002), Online). The truck that brings the circus into the village appears almost demonic; its headlights beaming out into the darkness of the town and the low rumbling of the engine make it seem like the truck may almost be alive, lurching towards its destination.
The rumours about the whale and the Prince arrive before they do. In the post office the sorting women talk about the disappearance of families around the village, as well as the burglaries and other violent attacks that seem to becoming more frequent in their village, the hotel owner; ‘Uncle Karsci’ also comments on the source of the increasing attacks, saying that no-one knows who inspires the attacks. ‘They also say, the whales got no part in it. Then the next moment, the whale’s the cause of it all’. The constant air of rumour throughout the film seems to be embellished upon by everyone who recites a tale that a friend of a friend told them, or something ‘they’ said. The feeling of unease and confusion created by the rumours highlights the lack of causality throughout the film; there are no explanations for most of the events that the film documents. The main reasons for the violence shown near the end of the film are never revealed, and left up to the audience’s interpretations. One argument could be the mass hysteria created by the arrival of the circus; the Prince’s speech stirs up a frenzy of activity in his followers as he planned. The destruction of the hospital, town square and village begins with an almost Hitler-esque tirade in favour of the destruction of everything this small community holds dear. Srikanth Srinivasan has commented that the film charts the rise of fascism through the eyes of one person (http://theseventhart.info/2009/04/19/flashback-52/). Though I can certainly see the links between the rise of racism, Hitler and the events in the film, I’m not sure if this is the most prominent reading of the film, as it chooses to ignore many of the metaphysical aspects, as well as tenuous links between the rise of the fascists and the arrival of a dead whale and Prince in a small provincial town.
Rather than commenting exclusively on the social features I believe the film is an exploration of human factors and issues. The characters of Tunde, the Prince and to some extent the circus owner use the people around them to create opportunities that will benefit their lives in a ‘ghost’ town.
The circus owner travels around the country and exhibits circus ‘attractions’ like the Prince and the whale. Although the Prince could potentially be the cause or instigator of the violence towards the end of the film, he is forced to ‘perform’ in the circus by the owner. The Prince’s speech at the climax of the film seems to instigate the violence propagated by his followers, many of the rumours foreshadowing his arrival in the village actually come true in the violence; people are killed, raped and buildings and property are destroyed.
Tunde, Mr. Eszter’s ex-wife has gained a position of authority by sleeping with the police captain, and is not afraid to intimidate her ex-husband by threatening to live with him if he doesn’t do what she requires. Although this position of power is not official, the police captain has no control over the town, appearing drunk and angry in Tunde’s flat, shouting at the television while Tunde humours him. This scene ends with the police captain and Tunde dancing in a doorway with their bed behind them in view; this shot implies that the captain has trapped himself with Tunde; and she will use all her power to get what she wants. As we see after the attacks on the hospital, she is directing the army; another position of power is gained, and with the police captain incapacitated; there is no one left to claim back rightful control. There are slight hints that Tunde could be behind the brutality seen at the end of the film, as she is the only one to profit from the destruction of the town; when we see her at the end of the film she is pointing at a map with the army commander, perhaps choosing her next residence.
The violence towards the end of the film could be considered an attack on knowledge; the mob outside the trailer smash everything that science has created; medicine, equipment, they even attack and rape the women in the post office, which could be considered an attack on literacy; the women in the post office could obviously read, whereas the mob never seem to enter the trailer to gain knowledge about the wider world around them; they just see to stand around the trailer and drink, waiting for the Prince to appear before them and inspire violence and hatred.
The abrupt stop to the violence comes at the climax of the scene; after the marauding followers of the Prince have destroyed equipment and attacked the sick or injured in the hospital; going from room to room in an orgy of destruction. The camera, in its ever present voyeuristic gaze follows every aspect of the attack, following men into rooms as they pull people out of bed and attack them. Although this is the only attack we see in the film, the choreographed nature of the violence along with the gaze of the camera makes it seem, as Jeremy Heilman notes, that this is not the first attack of the night; “Tarr shows us only the destruction of one building, but the impressionistic and highly stylized way that he shows it (using choreographed moves and a tracking shot so that we can connect all of the damage that we see) suggests that these same events have occurred everywhere,” (2002), Online). The tracking shot used by the director makes every aspect of the attacks unavoidable and unwatchable at the same time; “Tarr’s sequences have time as the primary axis on which movements are choreographed. Instead of questions like ‘What will he do next?’ we are forced to ask questions like ‘When will this motion end?’ “ (Srinivasan, (2009), Online).
The waltz of destruction that we are shown in the hospital comes to an abrupt end when the groups of men get to the end of the corridor, where a bathroom is situated. After pulling down the curtain hiding the bathroom from view, the men and the audience are present with the view of an old and very frail naked man. The sight of the old man makes the entire violence stop and the men embark on a hasty retreat. The exact reason for the retreat is again left up to the audience’s interpretation. The sight of the old man is such a pitiable sight, even for the audience, let alone the men who have caused all the pain and suffering in the past sequence, that it has shocked them out of their anger and made them rethink their motives.
The title Werckmeister Harmonies is a reference to Andreas Werckmeister, who gave the octave twelve half step notes; taking away what Mr. Eszter refers to in one scene as ‘divine tuning’; “…the Werckmeister scale, upon which the musical octave is based, is a false construct, and is not true to natural sound since it cannot convey the full range possible in nature’ (Heilman (2002), Online). The gift of knowledge is attacked throughout the film, not only in the destruction of scientific methods and equipment, but in the destruction of Janos’ mind. Although the idea of Werckmeister’s tonal scale is deemed as against nature in the film, the ‘natural’ order propagated by the mob and the Prince destroy everything, and the musical incarnation of this; seen in the police captain’s children, is anything but tuneful; both the children shouting and banging on various things in what seems like their parent’s bedroom as Janos tries in vain to get them to go to sleep. There are references to the Prince in this scene; as one of the children shouts through the fan: “I’ll be hard on you!!” the voice sounds like that of the Prince, foreshadowing the fate of Janos after the Prince-inspired attacks on the town.
Janos and Mr. Eszter appear to be the only well educated people in the town, (apart from Tunde, who uses her intelligence to gain power) by the end of the film Janos is left staring into space in a psychiatric ward. The roles of Janos and Mr. Eszter are reversed by the end of the film; Eszter is left to dote on Janos, who has lost his mind due to the violence he has witnessed in the destruction of knowledge in his village and the destruction of knowledge in his mind. After the violence has erupted in the village the authorities start to look for the participants; one of them being Janos, though he claims he didn’t take part. The slow shot that reveals that Janos was present at the time of the attack does not seem to incriminate him, but it doesn’t do him any favours either; the audience is left to decide whether he had any part to play or not. This is much like the conundrum set up at the beginning of the film; “They also say, the whales got no part in it. Then the next moment, the whale’s the cause of it all’.
The purpose of the whale in the film is open to many readings; it could be as simple as Janos says; to establish god’s creativity with creatures and the variation in nature. Janos also seems to have a relationship with the whale, visiting it on occasions to talk to it, once proclaiming about all the trouble ‘it has caused’. The whale could symbolise the world outside the town; somewhere where knowledge and experiences are welcomed and acknowledged rather than feared and fought against. By the end of the film, the whale’s ‘case’ and the ‘circus’ has been destroyed, only the whale is left. If the whale was to blame for the violence, perhaps it would have been destroyed by the mob, along with the circus and most of the village. The whale could be seen as the Prince’s talisman; something that could install faith in what he has to say and back up his arguments.
There is no solid proof about what the whale could symbolise and along with Janos’ participation in the violence, must be left up to the audience to decide. I believe that the whale could symbolise all of Janos’ and the village’s hopes and dreams, and is also representative of knowledge. By the end of the film; after the violence seen in the hospital and Janos’ breakdown, Mr. Ester walks past the upturned whale and destroyed circus; Janos’ knowledge and home has been destroyed, along with his hopes for the future.
The whale and Janos could also be linked, as well as the Prince and Tunde; as they are both effectively left in the same state by the end of the film.
The whale; lifeless and staring out into space, much like Janos, and the Prince and Tunde; gaining authority and control over other people through their use of knowledge and power.
The beginning of the Prince’s rant starts with a tirade of abuse hurled at the Director of the circus, and then begins to form on the towns and peoples:
“There’s no point in arguing! The Prince alone sees the whole. And the whole is nothing, completely in ruins. What they build and what they will build, what they do and what they will do, is delusion and lies. Under construction, everything is only half complete. In ruins, all is complete. What they think is ridiculous. They think it because they are afraid. And he who is afraid knows nothing. The director doesn’t understand that his followers are not afraid and do understand him. His followers are going to make ruins of everything!”
Tunde and the Prince share the same ideals and views on people and money. Tunde convinces Janos to approach Eszter for money for her cause, and to gain support using his good standing in the village;
“By doing this I gave up the position due to me in the town. Now it is his turn. Now he has to make a sacrifice. That’s easy to understand. You do understand, Janos? So with the police chief, and some more people of good will we are establishing a movement, which will restore order, create cleanliness and we are procuring the necessary funds. You can see that a movement like this needs a chairman, a strong individual, who has influence over others, who is persuasive”, although these two plots have seemingly different outcomes; i.e. the destruction of the hospital and the gaining of power, their fruition is remarkably similar.
Both events add to the downfall of Janos, even though his participation in either is hard to pinpoint; much like the role of the whale in the Prince’s plot: “They also say, the whales got no part in it. Then the next moment, the whale’s the cause of it all’. The narration by Janos after the attack adds more confusion over his involvement, as Jonathon Romney concludes “...his part in the terrible night remains unclear: when he reads a diary account of events we never quite know whether he's reading a narrative of his own involvement or whether he has 'authored' the events in a more oblique way whether he has somehow, if only by passive collusion with Tünde, catalysed the apocalypse.” (2007), Online).
Werckmeister Harmonies starts with an almost comical scene in a bar, and ends with our hero broken and mindless in hospital. The whale, the Prince and different characters throughout the film all add to his downfall.
The use of the almost mythical being of the whale adds a supernatural element to the film, and works to add confusion over the subject matter. Whether or not the director’s intention was to confuse the audience with the inclusions of such a creature is unknown, but the analogies of the whale representing the knowledge of the wider world, unavailable to the town or the link between Janos and the whale and their intertwined fates all add metaphorical meaning to the film. The equally mythical character of the Prince; representing the hatred and violence that can be born out of ignorance and fear is at odds with the representation of the whale.
The metaphysical representation of the whale, Prince and the use of characters add extra layers of meaning throughout the film, with connotations of the rise of fascism, the fear of knowledge and change in a small community and the notion of a wider world yet to be explored.
The artistry in creating the film is apparent through the use of steady-cam, long takes and black and white photography. The long, floating camera work effectively closing off the world outside the shot and focusing entirely on what the director wants us to see. The voyeuristic camera gaze almost adds an extra character to the film; pushing a sense of guilt on the audience as we watch a hospital being torn apart in front of our eyes. The black and white photography emphasizing the hopelessness in the village, and the lack of change and difference in their lives, even with the approach of a solar eclipse, than non bar Janos (and presumably Mr. Eszter and Tunde) seem to understand.
Bibliography
Burns, B (1996) World Cinema Five: Hungary, Wiltshire; Flick Books
Cunningham, J (2004) Hungarian Cinema: From Coffee House to Multiplex, London: Wallflower Press
Iordanova, D (2003) Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central European Film, London: Wallflower
Websites
Ebert, R (2007) http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070908/REVIEWS08/70909001 accessed on 10th May 2009.
Heilman, J (2002) http://www.moviemartyr.com/2001/werckmeister.htm accessed on 14th May 2009.
Kilnger, G (2000) http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/tarr.html accessed on 12th May 2009.
Mapes, M (No Date) http://www.moviehabit.com/reviews/wer_b806.shtml accessed on 13th May 2009.
Romney, J (2007) http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/1394/ accessed on 10th May 2009.
Schlosser, E (2000) http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/30/belatarr1.html accessed on 10th May 2009.
Srinivasan, S (2009) http://theseventhart.info/2009/04/19/flashback-52/ accessed on 9th May 2009.
Williams, R (2003) http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/apr/19/artsfeatures accessed on 10th May 2009.
