Already legendary as cinema and event, Tarr's seven–and–a–half–hour opus melancholia has been hailed as one of the most important films of the past two decades-and as a definitive statement on the end of communism, an interim report on the state of humanity, and a prayer call for a society on the edge of collapse. The members of a rural farm collective eke out their days through a series of failed hopes, unsuccessful relationships, and all–too–successful drinking binges, often helplessly sharing screen time (and importance) with the various dog packs, cows herds, and cats that wander through the rain–drenched landscape. The film is divided into twelve chapters, and each episode, its camerawork and score, mimics the hypnotic languor of a tango: a slow step forward, a slow step back, then repeated, merging image and sound into a visual chant. Elaborately choreographed, paced to its striking fugue-like soundtrack and photographed in a series of astonishingly rich visual tableaux, Satantango paradoxically discovers a strange riveting motion in its characters' stasis, and a gorgeous beauty in its mud–drenched, toilet–of–the–world setting. "You can't read War and Peace in one sitting," Tarr has claimed in defense of the film's length; indeed, his mesmerizing recreation of an entire world, complete with all of this world's poetry, despair, horror, and humor (even amid the mud and the ennui, Satantango certainly boasts a gallows flair for the comedic) makes it not so much a film as a place to visit, or stay.

Please note: We wish to warn viewers of one scene of cruelty to animals that some may find difficult viewing.