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IMDbPro

Les Harmonies Werckmeister

Original title: Werckmeister harmóniák
  • 2000
  • Tous publics
  • 2h 25m
IMDb RATING
7.9/10
17K
YOUR RATING
Les Harmonies Werckmeister (2000)
A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.
Play trailer2:20
1 Video
82 Photos
TragedyDramaMystery

A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.

  • Directors
    • Béla Tarr
    • Ágnes Hranitzky
  • Writers
    • László Krasznahorkai
    • Béla Tarr
    • Péter Dobai
  • Stars
    • Lars Rudolph
    • Peter Fitz
    • Hanna Schygulla
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.9/10
    17K
    YOUR RATING
    • Directors
      • Béla Tarr
      • Ágnes Hranitzky
    • Writers
      • László Krasznahorkai
      • Béla Tarr
      • Péter Dobai
    • Stars
      • Lars Rudolph
      • Peter Fitz
      • Hanna Schygulla
    • 75User reviews
    • 59Critic reviews
    • 93Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 5 wins & 2 nominations total

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    Photos81

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    Top cast43

    Edit
    Lars Rudolph
    Lars Rudolph
    • János Valuska
    Peter Fitz
    • György Eszter
    Hanna Schygulla
    Hanna Schygulla
    • Tünde Eszter
    János Derzsi
    János Derzsi
    • Man In The Broad-Cloth Coat
    Djoko Rosic
    • Man In Western Boots
    • (as Djoko Rossich)
    Tamás Wichmann
    • Man In The Sailor-Cap
    Ferenc Kállai
    • Director
    Mihály Kormos
    Mihály Kormos
    • Factotum
    Putyi Horváth
    • Porter
    • (as dr. Horváth Putyi)
    Enikö Börcsök
    Éva Almássy Albert
    • Aunt Piri
    • (as Almási Albert Éva)
    Irén Szajki
    • Mrs. Harrer
    Alfréd Járai
    • Lajos Harrer
    György Barkó
    • Mr. Nadabán
    Lajos Dobák
    • Mr. Volent
    András Fekete
    • Mr. Árgyelán
    Gyuri Dósa Kiss
    Józsi Mihályfi
    • Directors
      • Béla Tarr
      • Ágnes Hranitzky
    • Writers
      • László Krasznahorkai
      • Béla Tarr
      • Péter Dobai
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews75

    7.917.1K
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    Featured reviews

    chaos-rampant

    The whole is nothing

    How to engage emptiness, visually? This is the most tasking difficulty that I know of in film, for both the filmmaker and viewer. You cannot merely look - sitting still is not meditation - it needs to be a particularly sharpened but effortless way of looking. Seeing things without the person that sees obscuring the view.

    Only the Buddhist have adequately solved this to my mind, by tying into an actual practice of purging the self so that we got a work, a painting, poem or flower arrangement, that was itself an act of meditation. But they had centuries ahead of them to refine.

    In film, I can always count on Bela Tarr for a vision of formative emptiness, and ways to engage that emptiness as a space for contemplation.

    No doubt he has studied Mizoguchi for the 'mono no aware' of a transient sorrowful world, itself derived from the Buddhist eye. And even more Tarkovsky, in more explicitly adopting his omniscient camera for the reflections. The gloomy darkness he surrounds it with no doubt comes from Eastern Europe as churned from the broken machinery of decades old communism. It is implicit in everything he does, always iron cast in punishing ways. At least this part doesn't require any more comments I feel. The impressions of abstract horror are from a life lived.

    So it is a dark world rolling into the night that we are given here, from the memory of it, a kind of nightbound universe. How to struggle from our end? Why, most importantly, why even admire the great whale, if the whole is nothing?

    Of course, it is nothing less than simple honesty on Tarr's part for presenting a world as he does, as we know historically up to now. For the most, it is the Prince that humanity has been the most eager to hear, someone to incite change. There is no time to see the great whale whose body encompasses the world, the wonder of that emptiness that can generate form of such awesome beauty. The only thing that has power to halt the rampaging mob then is a vision of their own mortality.

    So in several ways, one is tempted to imagine a kinship between him and Trier; an encounter with the void, and human wretchedness in the face of that encounter. But I posit Tarr to be a wiser filmmaker, especially here.

    Look how he opens the film for example, a magnificent round-up even more pertinently addressing now, our microcosmic cycle mirrored from above, with humans dancing into position of the spheres. This is a filmmaker who understands.

    The only problem; the Nietzchean dismay he seems to have resigned himself to. The last bit of news is that he has decided to stop making films altogether. His worldview is a bleak one, no doubt.

    But it's an honest dismay, a way of confessing that he knows there will be light again in principle but can't seem to see any. It's a profoundly human despair, how he wearily examines the broken whale at the end. So the problem remains, one of embodying a world where, by simply existing, we are negations of that primal void. Isn't that what we're taught? So how to embrace the great whale then?

    The film ends here. It falls on us to see beyond the dark, and see if we can embrace the whale by seeing that the whole and nothing is the one.
    9Janazz

    Contemplative Film

    made entirely of longshots of 2-4 minutes in duration. Layers of symbolism in poetic images. It's not a movie, it's not entertainment. It's film, and you have to engage and ask questions about what you are seeing. Why did only 2 people saw the whale? What was the significance of that? How did the riots get started? Who were the insiders and who were the outsiders? How could you tell? Why the hospital? Why do humans always need a causation? Why was the Prince's speech in a different language? What did the Prince represent? What did the Whale? A viewer may not want to be taxed with these questions but given the way the world is, these questions are worth thinking about. I've only seen one other "contemplative film" which is Angelopoulos' Ulyssey's Gaze, which I deeply cherish. This didn't get to me as deeply as it's images weren't as evocative to me. This is probably due to my being able access the cultural symbols of Angelopoulos more easily (though that film isn't "easy" either,it's just that I have more background in modern Greek poetry, etc.). Recommend this film as a unique chance to think of an alternative use of celloid, don't be intimidated.
    thecygnet

    A Work-of-art

    Put it simply, "Werckmeister harmóniák" is one of the most beautiful and haunting European film of the recent years, and maybe the best Hungarian film in decades. After the breakthrough of the acclaimed 7 hours long epic "Sátántangó" in 1994 it took 3 years to complete this masterpiece for Tarr Béla. "Sátántangó" and 'Werckmeister harmóniák" made Tarr one of the most acclaimed and adored directors of the contemporary film making. This mind-blowing story is told in only 37 shots (I counted it myself) some of them lasts for 5 or 6 minutes. Despite the small number of the shots, this film has one of the most effective editing of all time. Every edit is perfectly timed and has a meaning of its own. Kudos to the editor.

    The stark black-and-white camerawork is by Medvigy Gábor, and the melancholic music is composed by Víg Mihály. The most harrowing scene is the raid on the town hospital, the longest scene of the film, shot in complete silence. Frightening and senses-staggering, the picture of the naked old man burns into the soul. Highly recommended, a must-see for anyone who is interested in the recent history of Central-Eastern Europe and wants to understand it.
    10afox9119

    Cinematic Patience

    What is perhaps one of the best beginnings to a film helps lay the foundation for the rest of this film. Janos is brought to the center of the room being told that, "it is time." From here Janos begins a remedial science lesion on the cosmos. He begins by using a drunken bar patron as the sun. Then another as the earth. Finally, another as the moon. He explains the rotation of the three celestial bodies in what appears to be a drunken daze. However, Janos stop the rotation of the bar patrons and begins his monologue. Janos' language changes; the music resonates throughout the scene. Janos gives the patrons an allegorical tale of the eclipse; stating the sense of unrest that the animals and people experience as this sudden change shadows the earth. However, the chaos is only momentary. Order is soon restored. Shortly after his speech, Janos and the drunken patrons begin to dance at which point the barkeep kicks Janos out of the bar. In a rather ominous tone, Janos exclaims to the barkeep that "it is not over." I summarize the beginning of this spectacular film because the magnificent Bela Tarr has laid out everything we need to know in these short 11 minutes to understand his work. We are told that the story is going to be an allegory; an allegory of great chaos brought upon a population of the ignorant (The eclipse frightening the animals natural order of life). We are told that most everything in the film will be symbolic (The earth, sun, and moon acting as natural life with disorder). We are given the weather conditions and the dereliction of the town which further sets the tone of the film. Finally, we are given the pace of the film. Patience is needed. A film captured in a mere 39 shots in what feels archaic black and white (Again acting as a symbol for the Post WWII desolate town and its intoxicated population). The film follows our protagonist, Janos, as he meanders through his life playing an oxymoronic archetype of the wise fool. His small Hungarian town is awakened from their inexorable lassitude by the arrival of a circus attraction. This attraction is a giant stuffed whale and accompanying the whale is The Prince; a mysterious and shamanistic disturbance to the town's feeling of unrest and neglect. The Prince then capitalizes on the ignorance of the town, leading them to form a mob and storm the hospital. Janos is forced to play the unifier and bring the town out of the eclipse. Tarr has created literature in motion with this masterpiece. Harmonies is more of an experience than anything else. I watched this film maybe 10 years ago and am just now writing this review. The film resonates and challenges our ability to interpret. It is almost like we as viewers would wish to have a SparkNotes page for this film, so we could understand the symbolic nature of the whale, the prince, and so much more. Yet, we are given no interpretations; just as I will leave you with no further explanations. Just a recommendation to find this film and let patience truly be the greatest virtue of them all.
    8ian.lavery

    Demanding, but rewarding

    Imagine it. You spend four years on a project, with big funding hassles and changes in crew; and then, finally, after your film is very enthusiastically received at Cannes, the lab goes and destroys the only English-subtitled print before it's shown at the Edinburgh festival. Obviously Bela Tarr doesn't have his sorrows to seek.

    Some might accuse the film--which centres on a rural town riven by the arrival of a "circus" consisting only of a dead white whale in a corrugated iron trailer and a character called "The Prince" whose nihilistic and inflammatory remarks incite riots--of veering very close to a parody of miserabilist cinema. Okay, so it's in black and white; there's a lot of mud, rubbish, smoke and wetness; there's not much dialogue between not very attractive people; every take lasts between five and ten minutes; and there are many scenes of people trudging through cold and bleak landscapes. (You'll never see so much trudging in a film.) Lars Rudolph, as the hero Janos, looks like a cross between a young Klaus Kinski and Frasier's brother, Niles, and spends most of the film wild-eyed and harried.

    However, Tarr's distinctive style--exceptionally fluid and intricate tracking shots rendered in beautifully sharp monochrome--perfectly matches the grim story, which, as the director pointed out, explores the "boundaries between civilisation and barbarism". Any seemingly parodic moments are far outweighed by extremely powerful ones, notably the opening scene in a pub where the hero explains what an eclipse is using the sozzled bar clientele; the hero's deeply unsettling encounter with the "Prince"; and the mob's attack on a hospital.

    Although the narrative falls apart a bit in its closing scenes, the film's images stay with the viewer in ways unmatched much recent cinema. This film demands your time and concentration, but rewards them; it has a unique and mesmerising rhythm. And the music, by Mihaly Vig, is simply beautiful.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The film is composed of 39 languidly paced tracking shots.
    • Quotes

      János Valuska: You are the sun. The sun doesn't move, this is what it does. You are the Earth. The Earth is here for a start, and then the Earth moves around the sun. And now, we'll have an explanation that simple folks like us can also understand, about immortality. All I ask is that you step with me into the boundlessness, where constancy, quietude and peace, infinite emptiness reign. And just imagine, in this infinite sonorous silence, everywhere is an impenetrable darkness. Here, we only experience general motion, and at first, we don't notice the events that we are witnessing. The brilliant light of the sun always sheds its heat and light on that side of the Earth which is just then turned towards it. And we stand here in it's brilliance. This is the moon. The moon revolves around the Earth. What is happening? We suddenly see that the disc of the moon, the disc of the moon, on the Sun's flaming sphere, makes an indentation, and this indentation, the dark shadow, grows bigger... and bigger. And as it covers more and more, slowly only a narrow crescent of the sun remains, a dazzling crescent. And at the next moment, the next moment - say that it's around one in the afternoon - a most dramatic turn of event occurs. At that moment the air suddenly turns cold. Can you feel it? The sky darkens, then goes all dark. The dogs howl, rabbits hunch down, the deer run in panic, run, stampede in fright. And in this awful, incomprehensible dusk, even the birds... the birds too are confused and go to roost. And then... Complete Silence. Everything that lives is still. Are the hills going to march off? Will heaven fall upon us? Will the Earth open under us? We don't know. We don't know, for a total eclipse has come upon us... But... but no need to fear. It's not over. For across the sun's glowing sphere, slowly, the Moon swims away. And the sun once again bursts forth, and to the Earth slowly there comes again light, and warmth again floods the Earth. Deep emotion pierces everyone. They have escaped the weight of darkness

      Mr. Hagelmayer: That's enough! Out of here, you tubs of beer!

      János Valuska: But Mr. Hagelmayer. It's still not over.

    • Connections
      Edited into Gli ultimi giorni dell'umanità (2022)
    • Soundtracks
      Book 1 - Prelude No. 8 in E-flat minor (BWV 853)
      from The Well-Tempered Clavier

      composed by Johann Sebastian Bach

      The "grating" recording that György listens to in his study. He has retuned his piano to a pure tuning, with which the Bach prelude is incommensurable, since it relies on the tempered tuning system.

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    FAQ17

    • How long is Werckmeister Harmonies?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 19, 2003 (France)
    • Countries of origin
      • Hungary
      • Italy
      • Germany
      • France
    • Languages
      • Hungarian
      • Slovak
    • Also known as
      • Werckmeister Harmonies
    • Filming locations
      • Baja, Hungary(square)
    • Production companies
      • 13 Productions
      • ARTE
      • Fondazione Monte Cinema Verità
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • FRF 10,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $69,923
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $4,852
      • Oct 7, 2001
    • Gross worldwide
      • $69,923
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 2h 25m(145 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Stereo
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.66 : 1

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