Werckmeister Harmonies

A stuffed whale sparks social apocalypse in this haunting cinematic masterpiece from Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky.

A small Hungarian town is rocked by the arrival of a travelling attraction: a massive stuffed whale, presented by a mysterious figure known as ‘The Prince’. The resulting unrest upturns the life of Lars Rudolph’s stargazing innocent, newspaper delivery man János.

Béla Tarr explores a shadow-steeped mode of infernal quasi-surrealism in this adaptation of co-writer László Kraszahorkai’s 1989 novel The Melancholy of Resistance. Legendary Fassbinder star Hanna Schygulla shines as the enigmatic local matriarch Tünde, the estranged wife of János’ ‘uncle’ and a catalyst in the escalating chaos. And the extended sequence of a crowd rioting through a hospital is one of cinema’s most unnerving visions of social apocalypse. Shot by a team of cinematographers, including noted director Rob Tregenza, this is the most intensely nocturnal of Tarr’s films – a haunting cinematic nightmare without equal.