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Sátántangó, following its bewildering eight-minute prologue tracking shot of cattle wandering aimlessly around the weathered structures and mud-soaked grounds of a deserted farming estate in rural Hungary, opens with a shot of a dim and basic furnished room gradually filling with morning light as a man named Futaki (Miklós Székely), having risen off-screen out of bed, hesitantly approaches the window to investigate the tolling of imaginary church bells that have woken him from his sleep. The final shot, seven hours later, is its inverse: another man, known as the Doctor (Peter Berling), boards up his cluttered room by nailing wooden planks to the window, the room incrementally robbed of light, the disembodied echoing peel of bells ringing in his (and our) ears as the screen turns a final black. Two mirroring images reflecting opposites: lightness and darkness, a move towards and away from the world, from cradle to coffin, a circle opening and closing.