Werckmeister Harmonies

Andreas Werckmeister was a seventeenth-century musical theorists whose work would contribute to the spread of harmonic principles still valid today in Europe. Béla Tarr’s film, however, is a tribute to atonality: all that is enigmatic, poetic, and understated. According to film scholar Rafal Syska, Werckmeister Harmonies is Tarr’s most allegorical and ideologically developed work. In this historiosophical parable, which is a loose adaptation of Lászlo Krasznahorkai’s prose, the stalwart of slow cinema explores the genesis of totalitarianisms. The action takes place in an unnamed village, which one day is visited by a circus that arouses distrust among the inhabitants. A bizarre exhibit standing in the square – the “world’s largest whale” – and the arrival of the mysterious Prince lead to civil unrest and riots. Shot in the Hungarian director’s characteristic black-and-white aesthetic, Werckmeister Harmonies weaves a bleak vision of society’s decline. It is as pessimistic as it is mesmerizing and monumental.

Joanna Najbor

Béla Tarr (b. 1955) is a Hungarian filmmaker. He started out by making amateur films at the age of 16. His 1979 feature debut Family Nest was clearly influenced by John Cassavetes. In the late ‘80s Tarr devised a characteristic black-and-white style. His masterpiece Satantango took more than seven years to make and was released to international acclaim in 1994.

New 4K restoration.