Werckmeister Harmonies

In a remote Hungarian town, all order, meaning, and reason are about to break down; for reasons left unexplained, people no longer ask why, or where, but merely wonder when. At the village center, a mob has gathered, awaiting the appearance of a rabble-rouser called “the Prince” and, of all things, a stuffed whale, a sight so unimaginable in a landlocked nation as to guarantee civilization’s total meltdown, when “the furious hordes of the anarchic unshaven would instinctively assume command.” Prowling along tavern floors and sidewalks, alleyways and hospital corridors, Béla Tarr’s camera tracks with minutely observed detail the fury that lurks beneath the air, tracing a society poised between civility and barbarism, only steps away from either inertia or apocalypse. German New Wave icon Hanna Schygulla appears in a welcome cinematic comeback, while Lars Rudolf, as the town’s wide-eyed holy fool, contributes a fevered performance of Klaus Kinski–like proportions.