MBC Interactive Archive Project
“Cinephile’s Choice”
SÁTÁNTANGÓ
(Presented by the Miami Beach Film Society)
One of the greatest achievements in recent art house cinema and a seminal work of “slow cinema,” SÁTÁNTANGÓ follows members of a small, defunct agricultural collective living in a post-apocalyptic landscape after the fall of Communism who, on the heels of a large financial windfall, set out to leave their village.
As a few of the villagers secretly conspire to take off with all of the earnings for themselves, a mysterious character, long thought dead, returns to the village, altering the course of everyone’s lives forever.
Shot in stunning black-and-white by Gábor Medvigy and filled with exquisitely composed and lyrical long takes, SÁTÁNTANGÓ unfolds in twelve distinct movements, alternating forwards and backwards in time, echoing the structure of a tango dance. Tarr’s vision, aided by longtime partner and collaborator Ágnes Hranitzky, is enthralling and his portrayal of a rural Hungary beset by boozy dance parties, treachery, and near-perpetual rainfall is both transfixing and uncompromising. SÁTÁNTANGÓ has been justly lauded by critics and audiences as a masterpiece and inspired none other than Susan Sontag to proclaim that she would be “glad to see it every year for the rest of [her] life”.
This is a rare opportunity to see this masterpiece in a theatrical setting, how it was intended to be seen.
PLEASE NOTE THIS FILM HAS A RUNTIME OF 7 HOURS 20 MINUTES
Presented with two 15 minute intermissions.