Satan’s Tango (Sátántangó) is set in a small, dilapidated village in Hungary during the early 1990s, following the collapse of a collective farm.
This is a slow, long movie. It’s bleak. It offers little or no solace. The measure is stark and clear: hope is futile.
The story starts the news that Irimiás, a former co-worker presumed dead, is returning.
This news disrupts the villagers' plans to abscond with a large cash payment they expect to receive.
The movie is divided into twelve chapters, mirroring the tango dance's structure of six steps forward and six steps back.
We go back in time, forward in time. It is oddly hypnotic. Are you able to handle it?
This is probably the most extreme example of slow cinema. Béla Tarr uses approximately 150 shots, many lasting up to ten minutes each. The opening shot is an eight-minute take of cows wandering and disappearing.
Yes - eight minutes! Of cows.
But the more you watch the minutiae of the villagers’ lives, the more oppressive their lives become and the greater sense of how futile their (and are) lives are.
This is not a movie for the easily bored. But there is beauty in it. Each scene is like a painting, perfectly placed people arranged to tell a story of their lives.
After a while you adjust to the slowness. So much so, you no longer want action and movement.
So are you up for it?
Support great cinema and buy the DVD. I share an international movie every week for you to try.