Werckmeister Harmonies

In a bleak Hungarian town on the plains, where it is bitterly cold but no snow falls, a young postman named János Valuska spends his days helping his uncle György Eszter, a musician obsessed with the idea that musical harmony has been wrong since the seventeenth-century tuning system of Andreas Werckmeister. János is a dreamer drawn to the cosmos, and he is troubled by the growing unease around him. A traveling circus arrives promising a giant stuffed whale and a mysterious figure known as the Prince, drawing crowds of townspeople. Hope about the attraction curdles into suspicion and aggression, and János watches his community slide toward violence and disorder he cannot prevent.

Béla Tarr directed the film, which he made between Damnation, Satantango and later works such as The Man from London and The Turin Horse. László Krasznahorkai wrote the screenplay, and the cast includes Lars Rudolph as János, Peter Fitz as György Eszter and Hanna Schygulla as Tünde Eszter, with twenty-two credited performers in all.

The film runs 139 minutes and was released in 2001, a co-production of Germany, Hungary, Italy and France. It holds a rating of 7.9 out of 10 on TMDB, while critics rated it 8.5 out of 10.