In an unnamed town on the Hungarian plane young Janos (Lars Rudolph), who seems to combine a deep curiosity and understanding with a certain village-idiot status, does various odd jobs and sees to the needs of his uncle, Gyuri Eszter (Peter Fitz), a gray eminence in the town. Eszter is a musicologist whose devotion to "pure" Pythagorean tuning (overturned by the equal-tempered tuning scheme of baroque-era music theorist Andreas Werckmeister) seems to represent a longing for a simpler, more honest era. This world view is not shared by Eszter's estranged wife Tünde (Hanna Schygulla), a devious person who represents the forces of repression and control. A central element in the story is the arrival of a "circus" featuring an enormous stuffed whale, a "wonder of the world" that baffles and alarms the villagers. Brought into the town in the dead of night and installed in its main square, it is a menacing presence for the perplexed townspeople and perhaps a portent of impending chaos. Accompanying this leviathan is a mysterious "Prince," seen only as a shadow, whose sole purpose apparently is to foment anarchy. Clearly, bad things are on the horizon. Director Béla Tarr based this dark political allegory upon "The Melancholy of Resistance" a novel by László Krasznahorkai, Tarr's frequent collaborator. It is an engrossing film, supremely odd and unsettling, and marked by the extended camera set-ups that characterize Tarr's "late-period" style. (Tarr enthusiasts more patient than I, having counted them, report that the entire 145-minute film consists of only 39 shots.) Interesting that the roles of Janos, Eszter, and Tünde are taken by established German actors whose words are dubbed by Magyar (Hungarian) speakers.

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I wouldn't give this review a number if I could avoid it as I only saw the first 15 minutes. With that caveat, technically, the transfer to video on this disc is relatively ancient: stairstepping, minuscule image, visual and audio out of sync all distract. What I saw of the movie itself was indulgent and turgid, even accounting for the possible merits of allegory ungraspable to non-Hungarians (though I have spent time there). The film opens in a tavern, and after an unlikely bit of contrived hijinks the camera pulls back and you think, yes, the only thing that can redeem this scene is if it's really a bit of overwrought theater staged within the film we are watching, we'll see the audience soon and then things will get better...but, no. A few portentous shots followed; that's as far as I got.

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