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Satantango
Satantango
Sátántangó
1994 ·432 min ·Germany, Hungary, Switzerland · 12+
8.3
IMDb 8.2 КП 8.1 RT 100%
Drama
Director: Béla Tarr
🎭 Based on «Satantango»
Trailers Satantango
Trailer EN
Trailer EN

Inhabitants of a small village in Hungary deal with the effects of the fall of Communism. The town's source of revenue, a factory, has closed, and the locals, who include a doctor and three couples, await a cash payment offered in the wake of the shuttering. Irimias, a villager thought to be dead, returns and, unbeknownst to the locals, is a police informant. In a scheme, he persuades the villagers to form a commune with him.

Budget: $1.5M
Mihály Vig
Actor
Putyi Horváth
Actor
László feLugossy
Actor
🏆 Berlin International Film Festival 1994 — Caligari Award

Béla Tarr’s seven-hour epic is widely regarded as a monumental achievement in slow cinema, praised for its hypnotic, immersive portrayal of human degradation and decay. While its grueling pacing and bleak, non-linear structure polarize viewers, it is fundamentally seen as a profound, if exhausting, metaphysical experience.

Cinematography The long, uncut takes and static camera work create a unique, trance-like immersion that stretches time to mirror the characters' existential stagnation.
Production The bleak, rain-soaked landscapes and dilapidated farm settings effectively establish a hopeless, entropic atmosphere that defines the film's worldview.
Score The mournful accordion theme serves as a powerful, hypnotic anchor that underscores the film's pervasive sense of melancholy and doom.
Screenplay The non-linear, circular narrative structure is either lauded as a sophisticated, multidimensional exploration of human destiny or criticized as an exhausting, repetitive cinematic error.
Runtime The massive seven-hour runtime is a point of contention; it is celebrated by some as a necessary, transformative endurance test and rejected by others as an insufferably long ordeal.
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