I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This is pure cinema, the triumph of cinema in our little planet. Like a flower that the observer is waiting to blossom to give him his beauty, wants time and patience, as everything is worth in this life.Alongside with Tarkovsky, Bela Tarr is the last director -philosopher in our time.

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).

"Werckmeister Harmonies" is one of the most challenging films, with the greatest payoff, of any movie I've ever seen. A visually stunning adaptation of László Krasznahorkai's novel "The Melancholy of Resistance", this film tells the story of a sleepy Hungarian village over the course of about a day and a half when the circus rolls into town. With the circus come two main attractions: the body of a giant whale, and a 25-lb circus freak known only as "The Prince". These two attractions have profound, shocking effects on our hero Janos (excellently played by the boyish Lars Rudolph) and the inhabitants of the entire village, if not the entire country.The story presents a powerful allegory, every bit as biting and accusatory as Plato's "Allegory of the Cave", exposing the nature of human folly and the reason why society does, did, and always shall suck. I've found that the people who most enjoy this film are those who are moderately to extremely cynical; it shows us a very dark, nihilistic, nightmarish world similar to what we've seen in the classics "Brazil", Orson Welles' "The Trial" and basically every Herzog film ever made.But what makes this dark film enjoyable to watch is that doesn't just show us that humanity is flawed; it seeks to explain *why* humanity is flawed.I'll warn you up front, this is a very slow moving film with seemingly pointless, indulgent scenes of people silently walking down the street, eating a can of soup, or walking down the street in the opposite direction. Something to bear in mind is, just like in the epic "2001: A Space Odyssey" which has scenes of, say, an astronaut running on a giant hamster wheel for a painfully long time, these scenes are there to convey the monotony of existence. Even beyond that, these scenes are supposed to convey the comfort humans feel with tedious & ritualistic behavior. Order vs. chaos.The second thing that might help is the meaning of the title "Werckmeister Harmonies" which is the key to understanding the film's message. It's explained in a scene near the beginning, but I'll try to explain it in simpler terms here. In western music, we have a particular tuning system for all instruments. This system was developed by Andreas Werckmeister around the year 1700, and centuries later we still use it. The problem is, in a nutshell, it's wrong. Werckmeister's "well tempered" tuning is a compromise that allows instruments to sound good in a variety of keys, but it sacrifices the purity of sounding perfect in any 1 particular key. Pure, "natural" instruments such as the recorder flute sound great but they are limited to 1 key, 7 notes per octave. When western music took on complex instruments like the piano & guitar which play in every key, 12 notes per octave, a certain degree of fudging had to be made in their tuning. This is because in the natural world, the diverse frequencies of music don't add up to neatly repeating 12- note octaves as we want (for some reason we lose about 1/5 of a note every octave). Thus the music we know today, while not necessarily being unpleasant, is not as pure & simple as true "naturally tuned" instruments of yesteryear.How does this relate to the movie? The movie is about humans' need to quantify the unquantifiable, our need to create artificial order that suits us, even though it may be an aberration of nature. If you grasp this idea, along with the metaphor of the Werckmeister tuning, as well as the creative story that unfolds in the film, all augmented with intelligent cinematography, you will adore this film.Congratulations, you have successfully read through the driest & most boring IMDb review I have ever written. I have no doubt that you will enjoy solving the philosophical puzzle of the film "Werckmeister Harmonies".Similar, challenging films include: "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1969), "Aguirre the Wrath of God" (1972), or the more recent Coen brothers' philosophical "A Serious Man", or the brain-blasting Kaufman dark comedy/mindbender "Synecdoche, NY" (2008).

In modern cities, we're bombarded by sounds and images all the time, creating over-stimulation. As a result, we can't feel very strongly about any one thing we see. Werckmeister Harmonies takes place in a small Hungarian town, where not much ordinarily happens. The citizens are under-stimulated, and as a result, have the sacred ability to be moved to the core by small things. Bela Tarr wants us to be able to experience this with the townsfolk, and goes through great pains to do so. The film is made up of only 39 shots, each one spanning at least several minutes. As with Satantango, they chronicle the monotony of village life: long dreary walks, manually heating up water, the unhurried conversation.While I wouldn't say I found every moment of Werckmeister Harmonies riveting (perhaps the non-city dweller may fare better), I can easily say I did myself a favor by watching it. First of all, the imagery: Bela Tarr captures some of the most enchanting and unique images you'll ever see on film. The ambitious art direction and cinematography are perfectly realized, and the skill and artistry in the single-take scenes found here is astounding.The film's simple but beautiful soundtrack works well, and Tarr combines it masterfully with his imagery, creating a lot of memorable and powerful moments.My only complaint is that Bela Tarr hasn't mastered dialog to the extent that his predecessors have. Some of the dialog-driven scenes feel a bit stale, and serve to work against the wondrous tone that he painstakingly creates. But all is forgiven when the dialog fades and he is able to focus on poetic expression through imagery. Who else can make a circling helicopter appear so organic, and so strange?Also recommended: Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice and Roy Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor.