Review of Werckmeister Harmonies (2001) by Justin B — 24 Jun 2007

You can put every symbol you want into a movie, but it won't give that movie any deeper significance unless you actually have your symbols mean SOMETHING. And, as a big fan of the long take as previously done by Tarkovsky and Rivette, Tarr needs to stop it.

Seriously. Just stop. Cut, for God's sake. Still, if you turn off the movie right after the Prince's speech, it's not too terrible, but after that it inflicts one lie after another onto the viewer, and becomes morally unsound as well as aesthetically unsound.

(Pardon the obscenity, but the old man in the tub is bullshit, and just because Tarr knows it doesn't make it excusable).