Damnation (Kárhozat)

Any description of Bela Tarr's 1988 epic set in his native Hungary will make it sound like a parody of an art film. It goes on for two long hours, it's in black and white, it's full of long takes. It's set in a rain-lashed industrial landscape.

The plot is fairly thin. It turns around a fairly unsuccessful sexual affair. More importantly, the lead character skulks in run-down streets among scavenging dogs and ends up informing for the police, while the skyline is dominated by huge buckets of coal being carried along between oppressive pylons.

The film assaults our ears with remarkable sounds. They may be the strange dirges of traditional musicians in interminable bar scenes. Or they may be clanging mechanical rackets in the background, that recall David Lynch's Eraserhead.

Atmosphere is everything in Damnation and it's an atmosphere of drunken exhaustion and pointlessness.

One of the most purely enjoyable films that the somnabulist has seen this year.
posted on 4/09/2002 04:59:00 PM