Adapted from a novel by the celebrated Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies takes place in an unknown time and an unknown place, where one day, a mysterious circus with a giant stuffed whale and a shadowy, cult-like figure known as the Prince arrives disrupting the daily rhythms of the local populace. Gripped by some sort of madness, the citizens build into a violent fervor towards the circus, forever altering a naive young man’s sense of his hometown. Master of slow cinema Béla Tarr in collaboration with his spouse Ágnes Hranitzky builds a hauntingly black-and-white picture of dread and fantasy.
Presented in partnership with the American Cinematheque.