For the first time in Russia, a retrospective of Béla Tarr’s full body of work will take part at Pioneer and October venues as part of the 33rd MIFF.
Tarr’s latest feature, The Turin Horse, based on an apocryphal story of Friedrich Nietzsche, was entered into the main competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival and won Silver Bear for best directing and FIPRESCI prize. The director claims it’s his last film, a farewell of sorts to filmmaking.
Béla Tarr debuted in 1979 with Family Nest, which, along with Outsider, Prefab People, and Autumn Almanac, composes his realistic chamber drama cycle, a series of vignettes from Hungarian everyday life that are in their ruthless precision very much alike to John Cassavetes’ masterpieces. Damnation (1988) marked a watershed in Tarr’s oeuvre. The monumental Satantango and sophisticated Werkmeister Harmonies are both stately metaphysical parables with distinctive visuals galore. Susan Sontag wrote about Sátántangó, "Devastating, enthralling for every minute of its seven hours. I'd be glad to see it every year for the rest of my life."
László Krasznahorkai, a prominent Hungarian writer, has collaborated with Tarr on more than one occasion. However, the director is also known for his adaptations of other famous books, including his masterful rendition of Macbeth and The Man from London, which is loosely based on Georges Simenon’s novel (starring Tilda Swinton, the film vied for the coveted Palme D’or at Cannes).