The Man from London

...others find fascinating and beautiful. Yes, it's a Béla Tarr film, and as such, it will contain extremely long shots and a ponderous, deliberate storyline. If that's not your cup of tea, then why bother? Buy a ticket to the next Mission Impossible or Bourne Identity.

This film is Tarr's homage to the film noirs of old. Shot in shadowy, low-key black and white, the story concerns a murder, a recovered briefcase full of money, and a slow descent into despondence and guilt. Miroslav Krobot is wonderfully morose as Maloin, the dock worker who witnesses the murder and retrieves the money, and Tilda Swinton is superb as usual as his high-strung wife, but the real star of the film is the cinematography.

Again, like of all of Tarr's work, this is a stylized, demanding film. The first shot lasted nearly 15 minutes, but within that one shot, we bear witness, along with Maloin, to events that drive the narrative of the film. It's as if, perched high in his railway tower, he's seated alongside us in a theater box, watching a deadly play. For a filmmaker to place so much significance in its visual aesthetics, the camera work has to be expert, and cinematographer Fred Kelemen proves up to the task, painting everything in a brooding chiaroscuro. It truly is a mesmerising, strangely compelling, even somewhat alienating piece of work, and a treat for the viewer who can afford it the patience.

If you are FRench ,first thing to bear in mind is that this is the second version of Georges Simenon's novel .This is not to say it's a "remake" for the two versions are as different as they can be.But it must be written that Henry Decoin's movie(1) was made in the darkest hour of the Occupation in 1943 ,and produced by the Continental ,a German firm ,so the writers had to deal with the censorship.What am I driving at?simply that at the time,there was no need to create a nightmarish atmosphere (although Decoin succeeded in doing so) for the nightmare was all around.

Compared to the "modern" version ,the old one may seem conventional (but please give it a try if you can ) .This one looks like a nightmare with its stark black and white ,its interminable fixed shots ,its lugubrious music -sometimes a simple accordion tune looks like Tangerine Dream or even Nico music - its actors whose performances are so overblown it's almost unbearable .The movie is very long and I must admit that ,If I did not know the plot,I would have got lost since the first reel.The lines are few and far between and it sometimes recalls films of the silent age this side of German Expressionismus.Bela Tarr refuses any suspense ,any show (the scene in the cabin by the sea is revealing:close shot on a padlock).The atmosphere is much more important than the detective story ;even the social comment which was present in Decoin's movie (If only my son could get into Ecole Polytechnique) gets totally lost in the treatment, deliberately so of course ;this man does not really want to get by ,his wife is a shrew ,his daughter is ugly and all the furs in the world can't change that .The characters melt into the background .

(1) "L'Homme De Londres"

I saw this at a sold-out screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival and was surprised at how good it was, considering I'd heard some negative or indifferent murmurs about it. It goes to show that you never can judge a film until you've seen it yourself. This is my first Béla Tarr film.

The Man From London is clearly a highly stylised homage to film noir of the 1940s. The lush black and white photography, using classic noir shadows and imagery is a feast for the eyes. The camera work is slow, fluid and dynamic, with very long takes in which little seems to happen. Combined with a mesmerising score slightly reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti's sounds on Twin Peaks, a mood of ever-growing suspense and menace is created that powerfully engages from start to finish.

The basic premise of the film is that Maloin, a night harbour worker (played by Miroslav Krobot) witnesses some treachery between a disembarking passenger of a ship (the man in the title) and another man on-shore. A death may have occurred and when Maloin investigates, he becomes involved in an intrigue from which he cannot extricate himself.

Tilda Swinton plays Maloin's wife, though her voice is dubbed over in Hungarian. The film was part-English produced, so maybe a name known to English-speaking audiences was required to market the film. The role was small, and I always find Swinton an interesting actor, so it was a curiosity to see her in this role. In general the tired and worn-out characters looked terrific on film, with a timeless quality that matched the aesthetics of the decaying town.

This is not a film for everyone, as it requires some patience and appreciation for aesthetics over action, and there is not a whole lot of the latter. While the film's major strength is its visuals, they serve to subtly drive the slow-burn suspense. I was surprised when people started walking out of the film, first one by one, then after an hour about twenty or so walked out in unison. I estimate 60 people left, around 10% of the audience. I was equally surprised that so few walked out of Inland Empire (I counted only four, about 1% of the also sold-out screening a few nights earlier).

Still, what's a good film or a good film festival without walk-outs? Many of my favourite films have had them. I have read that this is not one of Tarr's best films. Well, I loved it and must seek out his others.

In "The man from London" an ordinary civilian finds by accident a lot of money originating from a criminal transaction. We regularly find this story element in films, for example in "No country for old men" (Ethan and Joel Coen) from the same year.

How different do these two films elaborate on this basic ingredient. In "No country for old men" the "lucky" finder is being chased by a hit man and the emphasis is on action. In "The man from London" the finder is chased by his own guilty feelings and the emphasis is much more on internal psychological elements.

Needless to say that also in the Tarr film the finder ends up everything but lucky. The film has the usual Tarr elements as slowness, bleakness and beautiful images. Especially the first half hour has striking black and white imagery.

Watching this movie I realised that the mood of a Tarr movie has much in common with the mood of a Kaurismaki movie. Erika Bokk belongs to a Tarr movie just as much as Kati Outinen belongs to a Kaurismaki movie. Music from an accordian is indispensable for a Tarr movie just as much as the Finnish tango is for a Kaurismaki movie.

As beautiful as the images are so artificial and clumsy is the dialogue, especially the dialogue of the English inspector . This is in my opinion the main reason why "The man from London" does not for a single moment succeed in its attempt to be a neo noir Tarr style.

When you were a kid, did you ever hear the phrase, "You'll understand when you're older"? This weighty, grinding, almost intimidatingly lugubrious film from iconic filmmaker Béla Tarr may make you cringe in your seat as if it is all just too awful to understand.

The Man From London is interminable hours of the most hauntingly composed black and white photography you could see for a long time. There's slow symbolism dense enough to sink the Titanic. You'd beg them to crank the movie faster, but daren't in case it's a masterpiece. As a stylistic exercise it leaves you gasping, but working it all out is another matter. There's a Wagnerian majesty to it. A dignity that defies intellectual comprehension. At least until it has had time to sink in at a deeper level.

The opening shot made me think of that boat that ferried the dead across the River Styx. We see the hull of the ship. It is drained of colour and sunlight. Eventually waves of darkness drift down across the screen like eyelids closing. We are forced to contemplate it. The shimmer of lamplight on the damp dockside. Looking out through the lattice squares of a window, train lines frame the noirish scene. Low key lighting and oblique angles evoke a sense of dread.

We have panned back to take in more of the ship in the desolate jetty. This could be somewhere in Eastern Europe. Somewhere you pull your coat collar around you tight to keep out the damp, dank feelings permeating everything. Somewhere you'd rather not be alone.

Diagonal foreground lines of an overcoat collar intersect our view. We look over the shoulder of someone (Maloin) watching the scene below. There, men dressed in black woollen overcoats and hats. Only their faces highlighted. Steam issuing from between the wheels of a waiting train. A wordless conspiracy over a suitcase. Feel the cold, clammy atmosphere of undetermined threat.

The Man from London proceeds not at the speed of hell freezing over. More like a hell frozen over long ago and never to thaw. Ever. A place from which there is no escape. A god-forsaken wasteland.

The plot, what there is of it, is taken from a story by Simenon. It involves the discovery of a suitcase of money that railway switchman Maolin fishes out of the drink. The corpse comes later. The dosh was stolen. But the mystery, while satisfyingly concluded in its own good time, is little more than a pretext. Enigmatic justice dispensed by a police inspector takes our mind off to unexpected pathways. Hope, hopelessness, redemption (and without any simplistic religious overtones). Justice and humanity. But the real power of the film is in its formalist rejection of cinematic convention. There is a plot, but it is not plot-driven. The landscape, the bare-furnished rooms, are all protagonists, as much as the sullen and uncommunicative characters.

The cinematography cuts the air like a Baltic ice-axe and supports the film's main theses. We first see Tilda Swinton, Maloin's wife, almost as a hidden part of this surly man's own persona. The camera pans up slowly from behind Maloin, revealing her slight figure as she sits opposite him. In another scene, she goes to the window and is totally engulfed by sunshine for a brief second until she closes the shutters to let him sleep. Inside Maolin and his humdrum existence is hope for dignity, for something better. But it seems so unlikely that he can barely face the possibility. Precisely focused shots draw attention to tiny, grimy detail (often further enhanced by use of 'chiaroscuro' deep-shadows lighting). The grain of wood or the lines on skin, or even fingernails. We feel Maloin's almost invincible acceptance of his lot at a painfully deep level.

Compositions have the breathtaking precision and deliberateness of such Tarkovsky masterpieces as Andrei Rublev, but with the megalithic slowness that is one of Tarr's trademarks.

Apart from forcing us to contemplate much more deeply than we are used to in a world of fast-moving, CGI-enhanced cinema, the slowing-down reveals other interesting effects. In one scene, there is a long, unmoving head-shot of the murderer's wife under questioning. She says nothing for several minutes, but we see the gradual build-up of emotion in her features (the scene is reminiscent of Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, which are fortuitously exhibiting in the Edinburgh Festival at the same time as the UK premiere of The Man From London).

The forlorn beauty of The Man From London might inspire you to question the assumptions we make about cinema, instilling a deeper appreciation of the aesthetic possibilities of this wondrous art form. Or you may leave disenchanted, claiming that, however wonderful the characterisation and deep-stage photography exhibition might be, it seems rather less than the sum of its parts. Either way, the coldness of the atmosphere will have eaten into you to such an extent that you long for a bowl of hot soup or a mug of warming coffee. Your body wants to escape the implacable struggles and silences, the constant dirge-like accordion, the austere minimalism, and dialogue designed as much for its audio qualities as its content. And if you do, I hope, like me, you will look back and treasure what you might almost dismiss.