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Damnation (1988)

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2 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Béla Tarr is acclaimed a maestro not only in his native Hungary, but in France, North America and by festival directors worldwide. This is a serious art movie, with the accent on all three words. Most definitely it moves, and the art is serious, albeit tinged with black comedy. In a rainy, rundown mining town, the introverted and listless Karrer (Székely) brightens (somewhat) his regular visits to the Titanic Bar by sinking into a desultory, obsessive on-off affair with the bar's singer (Kerekes), whose husband alternates between hostile warnings and drunken banter. Keen to keep his lover to himself, Karrer devises a scheme to get his rival out of the way. It would be easy, but unfair, to dismiss this slow, solemn, somewhat oblique monochrome study of suspicion, corruption, betrayal and revenge as pretentious miserabilism. If its grey aura of despair sometimes hangs a mite heavily, it's certainly worth persevering with for a pay-off that is as perverse as it is powerful; the film's subject, finally, would appear to be the diminution not only of a human soul, but of a society; of the world, perhaps. But it's the absolutely assured direction that's most impressive.

Author: GA

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

Bea said...

Posted on Aug 21 2011 23:54 depressive scenes, yes, but brilliant music! brilliant lyrics! painful but wonderful. You have to somewhat understand Hungarian culture to be able to provide a fair critic.
80 % of them has got depression, everything is happening so slow, but it doesn`t mean that they are not happy in their own little lovely world.
You have to be very very patient with Hungarians, and it will be worthwhile, because you will realize, often you have to think in order to understand them :) And only then you will appreciate their art/speech/scenes/stories etc...
After thinking it over, well, slowly, patiently...
but you have the rest of your life to do so...
anyway, keep watching, listening, they need foreign attention!

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John said...

Posted on Jan 06 2008 11:01 I thought the movie was so long and the shots took so long to develop that it was utterly worthless. I really believe if the shots were not as long then the movie wouldn't be as boring, as it is, I'm not sure how anyone could stand it!

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