Started watching this at 4.00pm on New Years Eve 2006 with my
main squeeze so we could see in 2007 in Hungarian art house stylee: oh yeah we know how to party…

...Satantango is a brilliant seven hour film which is a political allegory for the collapse of Communism. It chronicles the lives of a group of people living together in a small, very muddy village somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The message of the film is that no system or ideology can be trusted whether that system is scientifically managed (five year plans etc) or beaming in from the cosmos (religion, God and all that malarkey).

Believe me when I say that although you have to make a SERIOUS commitment to watch this film, it more than repays the effort. Stunning cinematography, fantastic characterisation and more than enough cat torture to kill off any notions of the “innocence of children” that you may harbour.

This is a sly, subversive and darkly comic journey and you travel on the back of an acrobatic camera over some of the grubbiest and grimiest terrain you’ll ever find yourself in. Rain pours down as you watch an enigmatic huckster weave his spell over a bunch of money hungry punters driven to do what they do by the circumstances they find themselves in. Meanwhile horses escape from abbatoirs, bells ring out in the landscape and a wheezing brandy addict doctor keeps dossiers on everyone in town for what reason we know not.

At turns expressionistic, Lynchian, impressionistic and just plain poetic, we are privileged to find ourselves immersed in the world of Bela Tarr; where everyone has the lines on their faces etched out through misery, drunkeness and desperation. Abandoned by the State and left to their own devices, you can see why there are few pleasures and fewer moments of hope. My Super Sweet 16 it aint.

I can’t emphasise strongly enough how great this film is: it’s one that shapes and expands your cinematic vocabulary. If seven hours is too macho to begin with, give Werkmeister Harmonies a go first, as it serves as a taster for this epic and wonderful piece of cinema.