Damnation

To me it feels like this movie is just going through the motions of being a languid, difficult "art film", and that it employs those characteristics as an end unto themselves. I really don't see the need for every damn shot to go on for minutes upon minutes. One thing I really liked, however, was the music, and thankfully there was a lot of it. That song the woman sang in the bar early on was particularly captivating. It seemed to go on for ages, but I didn't mind that at all.

Here Tarr's frame is constantly collapsing in on itself, revealing new realities while disappearing others - Karrer, our hero, mirrors this redacted gaze trying decipher the meaning of his existence through the omnipresent influence of his object of desire. It is precisely this hopeless pursuit where Tarr recites his thesis on the nature of eternal suffering. Life may be an endless rain, but we always have the option to dance.

Such a lonely and desperate film. Tarr's characters seem stuck in their empty, quiet, stasis-like existences, situated in the most quiet of hells. The setting is almost oppressive in its bleakness and lifelessness, and the slow, lingering camerawork forces one to soak in every second of this pitiful world. Overall, it's an unforgettable, but painful watch.

Has something of a Lynchian feel to it: industrial landscapes, ambient noise, dirty bars and haggard people. The story is as threadbare as it gets, but the real attraction is the camera. The lighting and photography is utterly exquisite. The camera performs a series of extremely slow, extremely long lateral moves, concealing things and revealing others. A rewarding experience.

There's nobody quite like Bela Tarr. There's an overlying dread to Damnation, beating down the beauty underneath, but even for all its gloom, it still feels utterly poetic. The cinematography and camerawork are gorgeous, and the music is even better. A really exquisite film.

Ultimately feels a bit pointless, but contains some of the most beautifully-composed shots I’ve seen. Tarr went on to better things, but it’s an auspicious start

A collection of shots, some impressive, but every intrusion of dialogue sounds like someone's parody idea of "pretentious European cinema", to such a degree as to make one fundamentally doubt the filmmaker's capacity for judgment. The main characters, insofar as they possess any character, come across as insufferable bores: perhaps Tarr intends to damn them, but it seems rather that his target is the universe in which these poor unfortunates are forced to subsist. But they're just awful.

very underwhelming experience. the movie starts of nicely with a few terrific shots. after that the once beautiful scenes turn boring with the way bela tarr repeatedly constructs scenes in the exact same manner and unnatural dialogues and acting is piled on top of a completely uninteresting script. the ending somehow managed to be an anticlimax, even though my expectations by that time were on an all-time low. impressive. like owen1218 said: a poor imitation of Tarkovsky.

Béla Tarr reminds us that everything decays and turns into ash. Humanbeings have to dance, sing and desire to forget about transient world. He is rather a philosopher stuck in the body of a film-maker. Pain and despair can't be escaped in Tarr's colourless and lifeless world. "Damnation" is not for the fragile hearts. Painful and at the same time, enjoyable.

What an impressive movie. The camera work is some of the most fascinating I've ever seen. Delicate, patient and deliberate. At the beginning of every shot I tried to predict which direction the camera would pan and what person or object would come into frame. I was usually wrong. Tarr exhibits so much visual and audible texture which, combined with the methodical camera, creates a hypnotically enjoyable experience.

The dialogue, I gotta say, flat out sucks - it's wandering trite bullshit. It feels twice as long as Werckmeister because of those long useless dialogue patches. When it shuts up, though, it's hypnotic. And oh my god that camerawork! It's unforgettably beautiful.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Exceptional photography, wonderful music, fantastic ending scene. I think, however, that it is slightly too long.

Exceptional photography which shouldn't be missed by any cineaste, and an extremely slow but calm and powerful cinematography that reminded me very much of Stalker. (Not like a copy, but like a near-equal.) The film, the acting and the characters felt very sad and very real. However, the film doesn't have as much narrative and philosophical material as Stalker as to be able to go beyond the sadness and despair of the characters which it so powerfully portrays.

Intense visual expierience through long meditative panoramic shots.

The walking cliché of what’s envisaged as a pretentious European “art film” – requires considerable patience to walk through and digest, and it’s arguable whether the return is worth the effort, but it’s difficult to not be at least semi-bowled over by Tarr’s exquisite sense of framing and composition; it’s his style that is the star here, with the frankly puzzling and elliptical tale of lust (I think) and deceit rendered almost irrelevant by how sedate and bloodless Tarr’s telling of it is.

Tarr never appealed to me. I cannot find anything interesting to ponder in his works.

In Tarkovsky's movies rain is used to purify humanity, whereas Tarr uses rain to create more mud.

Life and it's self-dismantling harmony. The decaying scenery, repeating sounds of reality, all disintegrates into this black and white image of despair, a reflection that embraces it's suffering with desire.

Karhozat; Krasznahorkai'nin eksiksiz hikaye yazarlığı ve Tarr'ın anlatımından ziyade, Mihaly Vig'in kusursuz ve muazzam orkestrasının sizi alıp derin düşüncelere sürüklemesiyle birlikte insanların sevgi denilen şeyi ne kadar basite aldığına dair anlatılmış en derin film. Fakat bu filmden sonra sorduğum tek şey; "Mihaly Vig, Tarr'ın filmleri için mi müzik yapıyor yoksa Bela Tarr, Mihaly Vig'in müzikleri için mi film çekiyor?" oldu.

Perhaps the most dull, boring, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual film I've ever seen. I can't believe that anyone sincerely enjoyed watching this tripe, or gave it an honest, unbiased ranking. This movie should have commited suicide immediately after it was written, provided there actually was a script.

Capricórnio

(Viewed in 2012): While Tarr would continue to refine his distinctive style over his next few films, the key elements were firmly in place in Damnation: rainy/gloomy environments, delapidated buildings, haggard faces and lateral long takes in stark B+W. The opening sequence sets an impossible standard: a slowly evolving shot of a man looking out a window into a desolate space marked by the unnerving drone of industrial cable cars. It's a haunting moment that eclipses everything that proceeds it.

Gorgeous and rainy, but wasn't much into the story sad to say. There's moments I absolutely love, like the pan around the room during the passionless sex or the finale with the dog, even that dreamy piano tune in the bar towards the beginning. But I eventually dazed out and was less interested in the dialogue than I was in the dreary atmosphere of the film.

hav hav havvv

I was frustrated and captivated and I'm not quite sure how to reconcile these feelings. The aural nightmare brings to mind Eraserhead with its industrial wheeze and hum, though Damnation tops Lynch's effort whilst also throwing in fearsome rain for good measure. Features one of the most brilliantly depressing and subdued sex scenes ever.

People lost in a world which is almost always rainy, full of mud and dirt. In reflecting the people's transitory lines in an overwhelming environment/a wasteland, the film has quiet a success. Tarr's usage of walls as the cuts on a film line is qenius. Between the walls action comes into life and they end or get out of our sight when the camera moves towards the wall, which leads us into another independent action, moment, place. Shots, conversations and all are reversing the mainstream cinema.

Tarr's style and themes first come together here, and it's impressive, if a bit shaky on its feet at times. A depressing tale of irredeemable people being crushed, and Tarr makes us really feel every moment of it.

Man, I could bathe in the atmosphere of this movie. I don't really know if that makes sense, but Tarr's style really gelled with me.

"Yagmura alkol, aska sarki karistiralim."

I enjoyed the cinematography somewhat, but it was usually rather excessive, the director seemingly attempting a poor imitation of Tarkovsky. But I can forgive that more easily than the story itself, which seemed to me to be little more than the sympathetic account of a depressed man who engages in adultery and a rape attempt. (And admits openly to raping a woman in the past.)

"In terms of creating a strong cinematic world, Tarr has few equals." - Jeremiah Kipp

Soul-crushing.

Should apologize for the initial rating lol I fell in love with Tarr's cinematography style in the second viewing!

Atmospheric. The desolate, condemned wasteland seems to reflect the mental state of the main character. People talk, but actual communication is spare. However, Tarr's penchant for languid pacing began to wear on my nerves. Whereas it didn't bother me in Werckmeister Harmonies, here it comes off as somewhat unnecessary.

Another Tarr masterpiece that appears to get better after re-watching it, just not to the same degree as Werckmeister or even Satantango (which I admit to only seeing once, that shit is LONG). The only issue I have with this is that it makes me feel kind of dead inside :(

A grieving meditation on love in the shape of a noir poem done by Tarkovsky. Or something. Clever and personal, but disappointingly unaffecting. The scene in where our laden protagonist bark back at the dog was awesome, though, and the image of the old woman in the rain with the umbrella charming and tasty as hell!