Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I wasn't Bela Tarr's biggest fan after viewing The Turin Horse. A film which gathered rave reviews from the art-house crowd, about two of the most boring characters in the universe going about their boring daily business for a very boring week indeed. It made my life look like a thrill a minute! Although The Turin Horse was beautifully shot and magnificently directed, it had absolutely nothing in the way of characters or plot, which in my opinion are two of the most important things to engage an audience. However, I was willing to give Bela another chance. Werckmeister Harmonies was gaining some unbelievable reviews. People were saying that it changed their lives, it moved them to tears and that it was one of the most perfect films they'd ever seen. I put away my Turin Horse prejudices and was actually really looking forward to seeing it! Unfortunately, what I got was more of the same thing.Read any rave review for Werckmeister Harmonies and you won't see anyone commenting on the narrative or plot, they'll instead be commenting on the imagery and score, both of which are admittedly fabulous. I was drawn in from the opening 15 minutes which showed off some incredible camera-work with a 10 minute cut-free sequence explaining the universe with various German drunks. It must've been painstakingly rehearsed and taken an unholy amount of takes with the camera and actors moving around with great precision. I couldn't help but really appreciate this stark opening. And then we had the near-perfect shot of Janos walking down the dark street with a beautifully haunting score playing over it. I was swept in, buckled in and ready for the ride!However, just like The Turin Horse things quickly began to get tedious. The main problem is the characters. They're not exactly infused with life are they? The only thing interesting about the protagonist is his amusing name, Janos. None of the characters have any personality and they don't develop which makes it very difficult to engage with the story. I think it must be a Hungarian thing though, because every Hungarian film I've seen has featured stupidly boring characters. Hungary definitely isn't a place I'd want to visit or make a film about.The other big problem with Werckmeister is that it's quite simply, very boring. I love a long take as much as the next fat person but most of these long takes feel long for the sake of it. I don't need to see people walking for 5 minutes. You may say that it creates atmosphere and if you'd be right, but I'm not particularly keen on an atmosphere of boredom. Werckmeister Harmonies has barely enough plot to fill an 80 minute film, yet Bela decides to stretch it out to two and a half hours. Thank god he was never approached to adapt The Lord of the Rings!Much of the narrative is meandering around very dull characters. At one point Janos' aunty comes with her knickers in a twist about her ex-husband. The whole sequence is very dull and uninteresting, yet it takes up about 40 minutes of the film and adds nothing. At lot of people point towards a political allegory, which personally doesn't interest me at all, however Bela has even said in interviews that he had no political allegory in mind and was just shooting a story about a man meeting a whale. There could've been an interesting story if the most interesting characters weren't skimmed over. The Prince for example seemed like a fascinating fellow, but only his shadow is shown once! Obviously Bela didn't want to give his viewers a heart attack with too much excitement.Werckmeister Harmonies isn't all bad though. Just like The Turin Horse it is beautifully made, with some shots being nothing short of stunning. I must admit that the hospital sequence was also brilliant, even if the reasons behind the characters doing it are a little bemusing. The two scores that feature in the film are also incredible and actually quite moving. I'm not one of these people who cry at Mozart or anything, but I did find the music in this very powerful and it elevated some scenes (especially the hospital scene) wonderfully. For some strange reason I was almost moved to tears at the final scene! Now, I don't know if that was because I was so happy that my ordeal was over, or if the music was so haunting.I don't judge anyone for liking this film. It is undeniably beautiful to look at and directed with mesmerising precision and sometimes this is enough for people! Some of my favourite films put atmosphere first and characters/plot second such as: Eraserhead and more recently, Under the Skin. However, these films are interesting enough to engage me. Nothing about Werckmeister Harmonies interested me so I was never engaged or felt involved with what I was watching. I watched it in complete darkness and on a proper screen too to try and soak up the atmosphere, but I just couldn't feel it. Werckmeister Harmonies disappointed me massively and I've decided to give up on Bela Tarr. I almost fall asleep just thinking about his seven hour magnum-opus, Satantango! Read more strange reviews at: www.asdaman.wordpress.com

And then...complete silence. Everything that lives is still. Are the hills going to march off? Will heaven fall upon is? Will the Earth open under us? We don't know. We don't know for a total eclipse has come upon us.I've often called Béla Tarr a director of the mundane. Not in a bad way – after all, he's one of my favorite directors – it's just that the guy can spend ten minutes focusing on a man peeling a potato, or on the back of a man walking down a dark street, or on a group of cows walking across a field. But he's also maybe the most magical director I can think of, both in the way he can find beauty in those mundane events and in creating wondrous, otherworldly moments light years away from the mundane. In Werckmeister Harmonies I count at least three moments of absolute movie magic.The first would be the stunning opening scene, in which our hero János gathers the drunken guests of the local bar and moves them around the dance floor to illustrate the solar system and the concept of an eclipse. Accompanied by Mihály Víg's gorgeous score it's just about the most beautiful thing ever, and it establishes the film's central theme of order and disorder, as well as János' part in it. János takes the disorderly bar room crowd and tries to implement a cosmic order, much like he throughout the film runs errands of various levels of importance for the purpose of either finding personal order in a society that no longer has order, or trying to make the world more orderly, like when he helps his aunt organize a group set out to clean up the town.The second moment takes place when János visits the giant whale that has come to town. Seeing him eye to eye with the beast is a truly fantastic moment. The whale serves many other purposes for the film. In his encounter with the whale, János is revealed to be a man of faith: "A giant whale has arrived. This mysterious creature from the sea has come from the far-off oceans. Most definitely you have to see it too [...] Just see what a gigantic animal the Lord can create! How mysterious is the lord that he amuses himself with such strange creatures." It's a lovely, genuine comment, but it also makes us think, if he sees the arrival and existence of this creature as a sign of god, does he not also blame god for the riots and apocalypse that come with it? Tarr seems to suggest the answer is yes; when the whale first arrives, it casts an ominous shadow – like an eclipse – on the town, and in his second encounter with the whale, Janos blames it for the troubles it brought, in effect blaming god's creation.The third work of magic comes when the town seems to have fully entered its state of disorder. The market square is on fire, and during a masterful, silent long take, the citizens raid a hospital, destroying everything and everyone in their path. Until they find a naked old man standing in the shower at the end of the hallway. In what might be the most humane and heartfelt moment I've seen, everyone just stops in their steps and walk out at the sight of the frail old man, as Vig's score emerges to underline the beauty of the scene.I recalled most of Tarr's movies being the mundane things I mentioned before; people walking and eating, but I was surprised to find Werckmeister so thematically rich. In addition to some things I brushed upon I like my friend's idea of the uncle as the artist and János as the viewer. In that light the ending, in János is committed and the uncle relieved of his responsibilities seems to have another layer of irony and cynicism. I'd be lying though if I didn't say Tarr's style was the main draw for me. There's plenty of substance and food for thought here but the stunning black-and-white cinematography, in the uninterrupted long takes, and those walking backs provide the main source of magic.

I appreciate the previous review explaining the movie's similarities to Buddhist emptiness and discussing Mizoguchi's influences but the incredibly slow pace of the movie and incredibly long takes made me press the FF button of my DVD player and believe me it happens extremely rarely. There are many other excellent artistic movies with a slow pace e.g. Institute Benjamenta but their "magic" makes us watch them with constant interest. OK, there is a rhythm in the Wreckmeister's long takes and there is a visual magnetism of black and white presentation of a poor little town but the monotonous film lasts for much too long- much too long- much too long- (and so on for 141 minutes). Well, no to be totally critical, there is a clear advantage of such movie structure- you can safely take a toilet break or bring a cup of tea from your kitchen and when you are back... they are still walking (and walking, and walking).

This is a different kind of film. Some say that it is more like Tarkovsky in that the plot is not the driving force of the film, which is correct. Though, I would rather watch Stalker (I rated it 10/10) or The Mirror (rated it 10/10) any day over this black and white film.I don't know why make a black and white film in the year 2000? There is no artistic value in depriving a visual media such as film from color. In the same way that painting is generally not done in black and white, film shouldn't be generally done in black and white: color improves the expressiveness. I liked Tarkovsky's employment of black and white and color in different sections of the film, but make a film of over 2 hours of black and white in the year 2000? Please, artistic pretension doesn't equal artistic achievement.Another problem I had with the film were the slightly overlong takes of 3-4 minutes. I like slower paced films, such as Ozu's, but this is simply too much for me.Overall, the film was rewarding but costly and thus represents a work of serious art that deserves respect but I didn't find is the greatest film ever made.