Werckmeister Harmóniák

In the middle of a snowless, bitterly cold winter, an alien world descends violently on a small town on the Hungarian plains, threatening to disrupt the social order. A traveling circus rouses the interest of the townspeople, who line up by the hundreds to see the main attraction, the stuffed carcass of a whale behind which a mysterious prince is hidden. The wait results in an inexplicable uprising. An apocalyptic wave sweeps the entire area, sparing nothing and nobody. A sinister mood lurks over Béla Tarr's expressive black-and-white film, a vision of doom about the struggle between barbarism and civilization, with images of great intensity. (mg)