After a marathon, seven-hour screening of Sátántango at the Slovenian Cinematheque at 23.00 the Liffe audiences had the pleasure of meeting the iconic Béla Tarr, who was welcomed by a thunderous applause and an emphatic cry: “Bravo! A legend!” Tarr silently replied: “Ah, just a legend...” The moderator Damijan Vinter inquired of the auteur why he tended to prefer the black-and-white technique. Tarr explained that we see the world in colours and, therefore, the black-and-white technique immediately refers to the fact that the material has been treated, that somebody has “tampered with” the world as we know it. When asked whether he believed his film would still be relevant in twenty years’ time, Tarr replied that if a filmmaker ignored the determination of his time the film had a chance of becoming immortal – but this can’t be the filmmaker’s intention.

Tarr mentioned his long-time filmmaking partner, Lászlo Krasznahorkai, author of the novel on which the film is based. In order to become intimately involved with the atmosphere of his novels, Tarr spent two years in the Great Hungarian Plain. When he felt that he shared Krasznahorkai’s experience, Tarr called him and they were able to work together. “If the experience isn’t personal, the film isn’t coming from within you and you can only be a professional. Although proficiently devised, the film’s empty.” When asked whether he knew beforehand that the film would last seven hours, the director replied that he hadn’t – first he wanted to film a six-hour work over a hundred days, but the shooting was then extended to 120 days and seven hours worth of material.

To the viewer who mentioned the temporal dimension and its relation to earth, the director enthusiastically replied, “You’re finally addressing serious issues!” He explained that he found time a concept that’s paramount, which many a director fails to consider enough. We are growing older on a daily basis and our days on earth are growing fewer and fewer: “Say you’ve lost a whole day today,” he suggested to the viewers, who were devoting their attention to Tarr’s cinematic world for well into the eighth hour. That is why he decided to stay in the Hungarian Plain for a while – after five hours of immobility and inactivity time starts to seem surreal, which was the reason for the crew’s wanting “to involve time”. The reflection on circles relates to this concept – my films do not return to the point of departure, he contemplated – it only seems so when the reflection happens in two dimensions. According to Tarr, at the heart of his films as well as Krasznahorkai’s literature lies a spiral, a point to which the protagonist returns that is no longer the same; it has changed in the process, as has the character. “We are growing older and becoming weaker each day. Each day involves the same old routine, the same monotony, which is not the very same, though, as tomorrow I won’t be able to do the things that I have done today.”

“Sometimes the filming conditions are unpredictable,” he claimed and gave an example of an acting couple who break up during the shoot, which utterly affects the mood. A good director has to foresee these predicaments by reading and understanding people and time carefully. At the same time the director also has the possibility of being a conductor who responds to things and changes them. Although urging the filmmakers to be spontaneous, Tarr stresses the dangers of neglecting the initially introduced message, letting it dissolve somewhere in the process. He last saw Satantango a few years ago. Although he doesn’t watch his films regularly, he re-watched them to refresh his memory because the young filmmakers he works with can be very persistent with their probing questions. Yet, no more than that – “I am growing old, but I’m not senile just yet, I still know all of my films by heart, down to the last cinematic take.”

Andraž Jež

Photo: Iztok Dimc
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