Interpretations

Absolutely brilliant commentary, jec. You've awakened my brain and given me an even deeper respect for this film.

Ok, I admit I know nothing of Hungarian history, so unfortunately I can't comment on much of what you said. But I've studied music indepth, and I'm right in tune with that symbolism. I also agree completely with your interpretation of the whale--the enormous, marvellous beast who dwarfs the tiny, confused townsfolk and who, in the end, remains in her pristine glory despite the human carnage around her.

I agree also with your interpretation of the eclipse. It illustrates the tendency of humankind to lapse into brief, artificial periods of madness and hysteria. But these are always fleeting.

But here's what has always confounded me about the movie. SPOILER AHEAD Contrary to the "fleeting madness" theory, there are two instances where the madness does not pass:

(1) The case of János who seems to be permanently scarred by the trauma. He does not emerge from the eclipse like the rest of the town. He sinks into a profound and (seemingly) endless oblivion. What does this mean?

(2) The musical scale. Even though the "even-tempered tuning" is seriously flawed as the professor dictates, there is no resolution. In fact, over the last 300 years, humankind has managed to force music to conform to the Werckmeister scale. We now have digital MIDI instruments which conform to Werckmeister's (flawed) frequencies. We seem to have forsaken the instruments which use the "natural scale" in favour of instruments which have frets, keys and even-tempered resonance. (Aside: the only instruments which still have the capability of playing the natural scale are the string family--violin, viola, cello, dbl bass--and a few brass horns. But even these instruments are forced to tune to the flawed piano.)

These two points seem to conflict with the idea that "the natural order will prevail." Perhaps, in an oblique way, Tarr is telling us that the eclipse does not always recede. Humankind's madness is more powerful than nature.

Interesting thoughts on this film. I think you're right that Hitler and Stalin are both in here somewhere (the police chief who dances with Aunt Tunde while waving his pistol screams out "Angriff," the German word for "attack," and the Prince imperiously speaks a Slavic language, Slovak I was told...why Slovak???). But Tarr has also commented that the film was in part a response to Bosnia (is the prince Milosevic?), so maybe it's just a hodgepodge of 20th century Central European/Balkan strife, among which we would probably have to include capitalism as well - the film was released in 2000 and must be saying something about the more recent fall of communism alongside the other disasters that have afflicted the region since the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In any case, I don't to my knowledge see how any of this can be neatly mapped onto actual historical people or events. Nothing seems to fit perfectly, including the whole conceit of the "harmonies," the natural harmonies of music and the planets versus the manmade musical scales that parallel the mis-engineered socio-political orders of modern history. Werckmeister (the musical theoretician) thought he was identifying and codifying the natural harmonies that organized everything from musical sound to the order of the cosmos - maybe it is precisely this pretense that Tarr would like to condemn. But as I said, allegorically I think this film is a mess, and I have to say that I found myself cringing during the zombie-like marauding of the mob. The film is much more powerful to me when I don't try to interpret it in relation to a real historical situation or even an internally coherent narrative (maybe this is why there are so few attempts at interpretation on this board?) and just let myself be hypnotized by its long, quiet takes. It is very beautiful. What to make of the whale? I don't find myself caring what the whale means, although I feel like I'm seeing a lot of European films these days in which animal carcasses provocatively seem to evoke god in the form of a dead, material body... the bigger the better, I suppose. Also, if Janos is a stand-in for Hungary itself, it's very interesting that his character (like the two other main roles) is played by a German actor with his lines dubbed to Hungarian!

[deleted]

Brillian message, jec24

the uncle's assertions about the Harmonies were proven by life's own default

Werckmeister's well-temperament (different from equal-temperament) was borne of a process Werckmeister used to alter meantone temperament.

Werckmeister modified meantone temperament (and Tarr was using the temperament as a metaphor...) to preserve as much of its harmoniousness (metaphor...) in the commonly used natural keys as possible.

This enabled musicians to avoid using quasi-equal temperaments (metaphor...), because quasi-equal temperaments destroyed (metaphor...) the harmoniousness of the commonly used natural keys.

Werckmeister's well-temperament was a musical philosophy that, when implemented, enabled an appealing and refreshing tapestry of colour changes during modulations. The variety of changes, combined with the harmoniousness of tonalities, made well-temperament more advantageous and popular than equal temperament.

Many of these well-temperaments, which are also called circular temperaments, provide rich palettes of thirds that range from pure to full syntonic comma, meaning, from your basic pure appealing, symmetrical sound to an ebullitional, emotional equilibrium.

I said that the uncle's assertions were proven by life's own default, because life is dualistically harmonious and unharmonious, life detunes that piano, detunes that harmony, detunes that temperaments, etc, and life also tunes that piano, bursts forth with harmony, creates colourful, refreshing, indiviudal, and unique temperaments.

The theory which is technically disproven when it is applied to society and life as a whole, not just musical notes.

Soviet Communism in Hungary detuned the Werckmeister Harmony of the lives of the characters, and, ironically, the fall of Soviet Communism detuned the shadow of the Werckmeister Harmony of the lives of the characters.

Soviet Communism itself was presented as a Werckmeister well-tempered harmony, but the facade of its harmony was clearly false, Tarr through Gyorgy was metaphorically articulating that the government was propagating a false harmony, that people live their lives as a false harmony, that Werckmeister's harmonies acted as a false harmony to a mask unsavory tonal imperfections that always exist and threaten to destroy true harmony.

Werckmeister's harmonies were an allegory for the failure of East European Communism, for the evolution and propagation of corrupted "pure" ideas that are based on flawed premises (you can never hide and ignore bad sounds with advanced modulation techniques, you can never suppress and ignore all protestors who want to overthrow repressive governments, you can never suppress and ignore all the bad things in this world), and an allegory for blindly believing in the false ideals that ultimately destroy harmony and generate repression, cruelty, intolerance, cultural isolation, spiritual desolation, etc, etc.

The uncle's viewpoint was proven by his own discontent with the harmonies and by life itself, what happens in life proves his viewpoint because life is not one perfect, flawless, circular harmony. His discontent and emotional weariness and Janos' confusion and the traveling circus show (which disrupted the "harmony" of the village) and the effects of Soviet Communism in Hungary were all de facto proofs of the uncle's perspective. His viewpoint was, ironically, a direct result of the "Harmonies" themselves: perfect harmonious content breeds boredom and emotional emptiness and disconent.

Janos' emotional breakdown, the prince's tirade, the children banging out harsh sounds, the overall bleak desolation of the town, are all flaws in Werckmeister's theory.

The theory of Werckmeister's well-tempered harmonies was equivocated to following a false path to achieve harmony and enlightenment and existential purpose, and, again, the theory which is technically disproven when it is applied to society and life as a whole, not just musical notes.

In any case, the remaining figure is the Whale, which, while probably not God himself, reflects God's imagination, or, in an atheistic turn, the vastness of the natural order... This is established beautifully in the opening scene, further established in his first encounter with the whale, poignantly counteracted when he is denied access to the whale by the mob, and puts him in the asylum when he sees the whale abandoned and desecrated at the end of the film.

I didn't care for the film . . . in the following I'm not intending to argue with you, but just to give an alternate point of view about the same topics that might help give some insight into why it didn't work for me:

* I didn't find the film very surreal. I found most of it too mundane/"realist" for my tastes. I've liked some Tarr films, and he can be a bit surreal at times, and for me he works better when he is. Although I thought the beginning had promise, this seemed more "normal", bland, and just drawn out without being very interesting.

* The natural/man-made order thing wouldn't quite work for me because of my ontology . . . it's a dichotomy that I do not really think holds water. Additionally, I find the bit about musical harmonies and intervals in the film, the idea that there are "pure" versus "impure" intervals, etc., to be completely nonsensical.

* The political analogies are interesting enough, but I do not feel that Tarr did very interesting things with them. It's not enough for me just to suggest those analogies--that hardly makes a good film. The film has to do something with them and work as an independent entity, too.


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Really good posts here. I just saw the movie and felt compelled to write how great it is. Usually I dont like to get too much into movie discussions because even on mainstream bubblegum movies everyone loves to see "deep" meanings - which is ok, but not really very interesting to talk about. Here on the other hand is a movie that is so wonderful meaningful that one needs to search for answers others might possibly have come up with.

I believe this movie can on the one hand be seen as an allegory to specific events in history but on the other hand is so well crafted that it is definetly an allegory on the general human condition esp. in modern times. This makes the movie very disturbing because we are being brought step by step into a time of darkness and brutality (joining the main character during all these long sequences that make all this seem so hauntingly real).

I think a factor that hasnt been mentioned yet is the "control" of the masses ... how most men of the city are being turned by the prince - an outsider - against the weak and those who think different - like our main character. The prince utilizes the already boiling anger of the people about the economy and decay of their city to bring destruction. That is his only goal. We never hear what the prince really said to the masses, but perhaps thats because we all have heard enough politcal speeches (esp. the extreme populist ones) to imagine what it might have sounded like. If we had heard it we might even have thought it all to be less mysterious. But maybe that speech if we had been there had done the same to use without us realizing it.

How controllable the men in town are can also be seen in the beginning of the film where Janos explains the coming eclipse to the villagers. They do - which almost seems cute - exactly what he wants them to ... but they asked him to do it. So this might mean that people like Janos who can still be fascinated by the whale and the universe are able to transfer these emotions on to the men of the town. So the prince and Janos seem somehow to be like good and evil sides ... and in the end the good side falls victim to the evil one. Janos being different immediately gets him on that list that the men made who to kill after they heard the prince. Janos did not listen to the warnings of the others that things get worse because he is an optimist and a dreamer.

Maybe he could have done sth. to control the people in a postive way. But then again maybe the intentional control of people is already a negative thing in itself. As is the mathematical control and regulation of music - the werckmeister harmonies.

I found it very haunting that only at the most extreme point of the hospital scene the mob would stop and go home. When they saw the old man standing there naked - a picture of weakness and defenselesness - they would stop. Perhaps faintly realizing that they have gone too far. Or think they would have if they had continued and killed even him.

Since noone speaks we dont hear justifications or reasons for these crimes. And these dont matter in real life neither - its the act and the outcome that count.

We also dont learn why everyone gathers on the city square in the first place - maybe it is a symbol of idleness and thus readiness to be used by the prince - maybe they are unemployed already and have no way to articulate their anger. So they gather as a group and are merged unknowingly into a force with a common cause. An outsider like Janos walks between them and even has to justify himself for being there.

When the whale can finally be seen noone reacts except Janos, although we would have thought that they had come for the whale too. Maybe they already want the prince?

I think that the Prince speaks a foreign language does not mean that his nationality is important for the story, but that he is a travelling principle. Something that enters a weak society like an illness. The symptoms that follow have happened all around the world in similar ways.

Well, thats my two cents on that very intense movie. Of course these where just some personal opinions, but I think this a fantastic movie that deserves to be discussed because there is so much to see and think about and it reflects many aspects of life ...

I was interested to hear different takes on this film, but Tarr insisted that there was no allegory or symbolism to be found in this film. Is it simply a need to understand, to find patterns like pulling human faces from a visual maelstrom, that we do this? I want to pick this film apart as well, to find some explanations for the inexplicable, but the more I do that, the less I enjoy the film as not only a technical marvel, but a simple wonder that I fail to grasp. I like to think of a whale carcass being transported across a desolate Hungarian plain as just that, and not a symbol of something else or a story being retold through the eyes and pens of individuals with the intention of creating a mystery to be solved.