The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Béla Tarr · a film in Hungarian · 1994 · about seven and a quarter hours, in twelve chapters · from the novel by László Krasznahorkai
Mode
Chronicle of a dying settlement and a swindle, told in long takes; parable, dry comedy and lament in one
Mythos
The false messiah: a man believed dead who returns, gathers a waiting people, leads them to a promised house and scatters them; the devil’s dance that ends where it began
Phase
The last days of a collective farm: one night and morning seen from several places, then the march to a ruined manor, the dispersal, and the Doctor at his window
Presentation
Feature film in black and white, about seven and a quarter hours in twelve chapters, in Hungarian; Gábor Medvigy’s photography, Mihály Víg’s music, a cast that includes non-professional players
Register
Rain, mud, wind and bells at a slow, even pace; from the dry comedy of a police office to a child’s death alone
Scale
A dozen households, a bar, a town and a ruined manor; a community and the man who uses it
Governing Proposition
In a dying settlement whose collective farm is being wound up, the villagers hold the money from the cattle and wait, and a man reported dead comes back, speaks to their longing, takes the money and leads them away to be dispersed. The wager of the film is that duration can carry knowledge: that a narrative of more than seven hours, held in long takes and danced six steps forward and six back, can make its viewer wait as the villagers wait, and show how a people’s hope becomes the instrument of the man who promises to deliver it.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The film begins in mud. Cattle wander out of a barn into the yard of a farm, and the camera tracks with them for minutes while a bell sounds. Nothing is explained, and no one is introduced. The first image is a slow herd in the dirt, held until it stops being a view of cattle and becomes a measure of time. Before the film has a character it has a pace, and the viewer learns at once how slowly this world moves and how long the film will ask them to watch it move.
Béla Tarr directed Sátántangó from a screenplay he wrote with László Krasznahorkai, after Krasznahorkai’s novel of 1985. Gábor Medvigy photographed it in black and white, Ágnes Hranitzky edited it, and Mihály Víg wrote the music and plays Irimiás. With him are Putyi Horváth as Petrina, Miklós Székely B. as Futaki, László Lugossy as Schmidt, János Derzsi as Kráner, Peter Berling as the Doctor and Erika Bók as Estike. It was first shown at the Berlin festival in February 1994, in Hungarian, and it exists in one version.
It runs about seven and a quarter hours; sources give 432 to about 450 minutes, depending on the source and the speed of projection, and nothing turns on the spread. It is built in twelve chapters on the pattern of the dance in its title, six steps forward and six back. Several chapters of the first half cover the same night and morning from different positions, so that the film returns in time as it advances. The second half follows a march and a dispersal, and the last chapter brings the film round to its own first words.
Movement II
Futaki wakes before dawn in the settlement and hears bells, though there is no church to ring them. The collective farm is being wound up. The households that remain, Futaki, the Schmidts and the others, hold between them the money from the cattle. Into this waiting comes word of Irimiás, a man reported dead, who is alive and coming back. The settlement does not ask what he will do. It has been waiting for someone, and now it has a name to wait for.
Irimiás is seen with his companion Petrina in a police office in the town, before a captain, and what he is the film shows there and later: the man the villagers wait for as a deliverer is an informer for the state. Then the two walk up a town street into a wind full of blown litter, the camera going with them. The walk is magnificent and is held beyond what it knows: two figures pushing up a street against a world that blows its rubbish at them, for longer than the chapter needs.
In his house the Doctor sits at his window with a notebook, drinking, watching the settlement and writing down what he sees of everyone in it. His chapter returns to the same night from his position, and the film does this more than once: the night of the bells is seen from Futaki and the Schmidts, from the Doctor’s window, from Estike, and from the bar. Each life is watched by someone, and no one is helped by being watched. The Doctor, who records everything, is the film’s form looking at itself.
Movement III
Estike is a child, used and despised in her family, by her mother, her sisters and her brother Sanyi. In the chapter given to her she does to her cat what is done to her. She kills it with rat poison in milk, and carries the dead animal through the rain. Erika Bók plays her with almost no movement, and the film does not soften what she does or explain it. Cruelty has come down the order to the smallest creature in it, and the child is both its victim and its agent.
She comes to the bar and stands at its window in the rain while inside the villagers drink and dance. The drunken tango turns to the accordion and goes on past what the chapter needs, and outside the glass a child watches, seen and not helped. In the bar the drinkers fall asleep where they sit, and the spider’s work covers them. The dance inside and the child outside are one image of the community: a circle that moves and goes nowhere, and someone at its edge it will not take in.
Estike dies alone in the ruined church. The film does not cut away from her chapter, and there is no ellipsis to grant mercy: the long take keeps the viewer with her where no one from the settlement is. Her death is the hinge of the whole film. Without it the speech that follows would have nothing to convert, and the cruelty passed down the order, from the village to the child and from the child to the cat, would have nowhere further to go.
Movement IV
Irimiás arrives and speaks over Estike’s body. He makes of her death everyone’s guilt, a lesson to the whole settlement, and of their guilt his fund: the villagers hand the cattle money to the man who promises them a house and a future. Víg plays him gaunt and plausible, and the speech works because it speaks to a longing already there. The man believed dead has come back, and the people who waited for a deliverer give themselves to him.
They leave the settlement and march through the rain to a ruined manor, the house they were promised. The march is held as the cattle were held at the beginning, at walking pace, in mud, for as long as it takes. The manor is a ruin, and the promise is not kept. Irimiás disperses them, and the community that waited for him is broken up. The swindle is economic, political and religious at once: the money is taken, the informer has his people, and the faith that gathered them is used up.
The pattern is among the oldest there is, turned over. A man believed dead returns, is awaited by a people in need of salvation, leads them out of their village to a promised house, and scatters them; the messiah and the tempter are one figure. In the town at night horses run loose in the square. The bells that rang at dawn with no church behind them are never explained, and the film leaves open whether they were a sign or a madness.
Movement V
In the police office two clerks take the report Irimiás has written on the villagers and rewrite it, phrase by phrase, from its lurid language into the language of a file. The scene is played as dry comedy, the sharpest register in the film, and it says what the film has said throughout: people exist as they are described by those who use them. The informer files the villagers, the clerks file the informer’s words, and the typewriter makes them all into a record.
The Doctor, who has been absent, returns to his house and his window. He nails boards over it until the screen is dark, and then he begins to write: the text with which the film began. The dance has come back to its first step. The man who watched everyone and helped no one is the one who writes them down, and whether he is the author of what has been seen, the film leaves open. The twelfth chapter ends where the first began, and the circle closes on a dark screen.
Sátántangó was first shown at Berlin in February 1994. Its length has kept it from television and from most repertory programmes; it has lived at festivals, retrospectives and cinematheques and on home video, and a restoration shown in 2019, for its twenty-fifth year, repaired the one cut and brought it back to cinemas. Its standing among critics has risen and held. With Tarr’s later films it became the founding object of what critics came to call slow cinema. What it made is a form in which waiting is the knowledge, and the viewer’s hope is used as the villagers’ was.
Act III · The Twelve
Judged on structure, since length is not in itself a cost, and the subtractive test bites less than seven hours suggest. The overlapping chapters are required: the bells Futaki hears at dawn, the Doctor’s watching, Estike at the bar window and the dance inside are one night seen from four places, and the claim that each life is seen and not helped depends on seeing it four times. Estike’s chapter is the hinge, without which the speech over her body has nothing to turn into money. The police office and the clerks are required to show what Irimiás is. What gives is inside the takes: the drunken tango and the accordion run past their point, and the walk into the wind is held beyond what it knows.
Score: 8.4 / 10
The disclosure can be stated, and it holds: a community whose order has dissolved does not free itself but waits for a deliverer, and the waiting delivers it to the man who robs it. The prophet is the state’s informer, and hope is the instrument of the villagers’ use: they hand the cattle money to a man reported dead because he speaks to their longing. A second truth is given in image: cruelty passes down the order, from the village to Estike and from Estike to the cat. A third is in the clerks: people are remade by the language that files them. Held below the top because much of the force is mood, of rain, mud and decay, and the history of 1989 is felt and never opened.
Score: 8.6 / 10
Elevation is frequent, and almost always dreadful. The opening tracks cattle wandering out of a barn into the mud for minutes while a bell sounds. Estike carries the dead cat in the rain and stands at the bar window while the dancers turn inside. Irimiás and Petrina walk up a town street into a wind full of blown litter. Horses run loose in a town square at night. The villagers march to the manor in the rain. The Doctor nails boards over his window until the screen is dark. Height comes from duration, a shot held until it changes kind. What holds the figure: the elevation keeps to one cold register, and long stretches, the Doctor drinking and the bar, are flat by design.
Score: 8.7 / 10
The myth is built and bears load. The structure is the devil’s dance named in the title, six steps forward and six back, so that the film advances to its own beginning and closes when the Doctor writes its first words. Inside it the oldest of patterns is turned over: a man believed dead returns, is awaited by a people in need of salvation, leads them out of their village to a promised house, and disperses them; messiah and tempter are one figure. Bells ring with no church to ring them. The particular stays particular: cattle money, a ledger, rat poison in milk, a police clerk’s typewriter. Held below the top because Irimiás’s rhetoric sometimes states the inversion the structure already holds, and the one archetype is sounded many times.
Score: 8.8 / 10
The inheritance is the long take of Hungarian cinema, Miklós Jancsó above all, the duration of Tarkovsky, and Tarr’s own turn from the handheld social realism of his early films to the black and white of Damnation (1988), already made with Krasznahorkai and Víg. The departure is in scale and in structure, and both cost a great deal: a narrative of more than seven hours, with very few cuts and chapters that double back in time, made as the country’s film industry was collapsing and almost impossible to programme. The wager was that duration alone could carry it. Held below the top because the manner, the camera, the weather and the partnership were proved in Damnation: the swerve is in magnitude and architecture more than in grammar.
Score: 8.8 / 10
Change the form and the film loses what it knows. The duration is the knowledge: the villagers wait, and the viewer waits with them in real time for a deliverance that does not come, so that the viewer’s hope is the villagers’ hope, and is used as theirs is. The tango is the knowledge that this world moves and does not advance. One night seen four times makes the community a web of watchers who see and do not help, and the Doctor at his window with his notebook is the form looking at itself. The long take refuses the ellipsis that would grant mercy: Estike’s chapter cannot be cut away from. Held from the top where a take’s length becomes endurance, chiefly in the dance.
Score: 9.1 / 10
Evidence across thirty-two years, from a smaller audience than most films at this height have had. Its standing among critics has risen and held across that span, and it is returned to as the founding case of a whole manner of film. The questions stay open: whether Irimiás believes any of what he says; whether the Doctor is the author of what has been seen; whether the bells are a sign or a madness; whether the film portrays the end of state socialism or something without a date. Formally, the choreography of camera and figure in the long takes rewards close study without end. Held by span, and by the narrowness of the viewing that has done the returning.
Score: 8.6 / 10
Released in 1994, so force and reach are scored together. The intrinsic force is high: the film showed that a narrative feature could take the length of a novel and the tempo of lived time, and hold. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: with Tarr’s later films it became the founding object of what critics came to call slow cinema; Gus Van Sant has named Tarr’s influence on Gerry (2002) and the films after it; Lav Diaz’s long films work in its line; László Nemes was Tarr’s assistant before Son of Saul (2015). Beyond festival and cinematheque the reach is small, and what it shares with Tarkovsky, Angelopoulos and Tsai Ming-liang is discounted. It stands at the bar, not above it.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Survival is weighed on form, presence and fabric across thirty-two years. The form is whole: one version, nothing lost, and the restoration of 2019, a repair of the same cut, brought it back to cinemas. Presence is continuous but narrow: the running time has kept it from television and from most repertory programmes, and it has lived at festivals, retrospectives and cinematheques and on home video. The fabric is not fixed to its moment in the usual way: the decay of a collective farm at the end of the 1980s dates the setting, but the film is shot as if from no date, and the mud and the rain do not age. Thirty-two years is a short demonstration, and the narrowness of the presence holds the figure at the bar.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Command of the medium, and the making bears weight throughout. Gábor Medvigy’s black and white holds the grey of rain and mud without monotony, and the long takes are choreographed to the step: the camera moves with figures, leaves them and finds them again. The sound is as made as the image: rain on every surface, bells, wind, footsteps in mud, the accordion, Mihály Víg’s few repeated themes. Ágnes Hranitzky’s editing lies in the placing of very few cuts. Víg’s Irimiás, gaunt and plausible, carries the film; Erika Bók’s Estike is a performance of almost no movement. The costs: some of the non-professional playing is stiff, the Doctor’s voice-over carries what the image already carries, and some takes are held by will rather than by necessity.
Score: 9.0 / 10
Take the two most distant elements: two police clerks rewriting Irimiás’s lurid report into bureaucratic phrases, played as dry comedy, and Estike’s death alone in the ruined church. One law governs both: people exist as they are described by those who use them, and no one in this world is helped by being seen. The clerks file the villagers; Irimiás’s speech files Estike as a lesson; the Doctor files everyone in his notebook. The dance, the cattle, the horses in the square and the boarded window obey the same physics of slow time, weather and circling. The range is wide for so even a surface, from farce to the death of a child. The strain is slight: the comic bureaucracy is a sharper register than anything near it.
Score: 8.9 / 10
Judged on what a film of seven hours holds, and it holds many orders in one swindle. The community: a dozen households of a dying settlement. Labour and the economy: the end of the collective farm and the cattle money. The state: the police captain, the clerks and the informer. The sacred: a ruined church, bells, a messiah and a devil’s dance. The family: Estike, her mother, her brother Sanyi and her sisters. The natural order: rain, mud, cattle, cat and horses. Irimiás’s fraud is economic, political and religious at once. What holds the axis lowest of the twelve: consciousness, in Futaki’s fear and the Doctor’s watching, is entered little; history is implied and never named; and the world beyond the settlement and the town is absent.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.7 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Living Form at 9.1, The Made at 9.0 and The Inner Law at 8.9. A form in which duration is the knowledge, so that the viewer waits as the villagers wait and is used as they are; a command of long takes choreographed to the step, with sound as made as the image; and one law, that people exist as they are described by those who use them, from the clerks’ comedy to a child’s death.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 8.3: the community, labour, the state, the sacred, the family and the natural order are held in one swindle, but consciousness is entered little, history is implied and never named, and the world beyond the settlement and the town is absent. Above it, The Inevitable at 8.4: every chapter is required, but the drunken tango and the walk into the wind are held past what they know.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.4 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears with room: The Living Form at 9.1, The Made at 9.0, The Inner Law at 8.9, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is met on all five: The Swerve at 8.8, The Archetypal Deep at 8.8 and The Unconcealment at 8.6 clear the bar of 8.5, and Pressure on Tradition and The Imperishable meet it exactly at 8.5. The Universal Minimum is met: no axis but The Encompassed falls below 8.4, against 7.5, and The Encompassed, which is exempted, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 8.3. Every summit condition is met; the work is held below the summit by its aggregate alone, 8.7 from a sum of 104.2, below the 9.0 that Tier V requires.
Basis · a reading from knowledge of Sátántangó as first shown at Berlin in February 1994, in its one version, about seven and a quarter hours in twelve chapters, from the cattle in the yard to the boarded window. Directed by Béla Tarr; screenplay by Tarr and László Krasznahorkai, from Krasznahorkai’s novel of 1985; photographed by Gábor Medvigy; edited by Ágnes Hranitzky; music by Mihály Víg. Sources give the running time as 432 to about 450 minutes, depending on the source and the speed of projection; the whole film is judged, and nothing turns on the spread. The restoration shown in 2019 is a repair of the same cut, not a separate object, and bears on The Imperishable only. No print, script or subtitle file was consulted. Every axis is judged on the Hungarian film; English subtitles are a reader’s aid rather than the object, and nothing here is charged to them. No line of dialogue is held to the word, so none is quoted, and speech is described. The novel is not part of the work and is named as its source. Reports of how the cat’s scene was made could not be verified and are not judged; within the work the scene is weighed for what it does. Details that could not be verified are not given, among them the production companies, the years of shooting, the number of shots and the length of the average take, the English titles of the chapters, the particular books written on the film, and what the travellers see in the mist of the ninth chapter.