To say this film isn't The Sound of Music is putting it mildly; it is a hard film to like, but for those who love the art of film, easy to admire. I do not love this film, and often did not particularly like it watching it--but I gave it a top rating because it is surely a masterpiece of its kind. Grim, dark, and brutal, Satantango moves at a pace that is almost glacial, but is completely one of a kind, a close examination of a people left behind by a government too busy to notice, left behind by a world beset by technological advances, left behind because nobody cares.
Not one character in this lengthy film is particularly attractive, and in one section we watch for nearly an hour as a local Doctor becomes staggeringly drunk and lurches outside into the mud and the dark to refill his jug.
This film is an immersion into the lifestyle and the textures and the surroundings of a small village in winter, a place where the villagers have put their faith in a man who has clearly decided to leave them in ruins; the film is seven hours long, and frequently a puzzlement. And if you allow yourself to be hypnotized by its dark, careful composition, unforgettable. This is absolutely not an entertainment in the usual sense of the word; be forewarned--but if you want a visual puzzle, an intellectual challenge, and a cinematic world all its own, Satantango is inimitable
Not one character in this lengthy film is particularly attractive, and in one section we watch for nearly an hour as a local Doctor becomes staggeringly drunk and lurches outside into the mud and the dark to refill his jug.
This film is an immersion into the lifestyle and the textures and the surroundings of a small village in winter, a place where the villagers have put their faith in a man who has clearly decided to leave them in ruins; the film is seven hours long, and frequently a puzzlement. And if you allow yourself to be hypnotized by its dark, careful composition, unforgettable. This is absolutely not an entertainment in the usual sense of the word; be forewarned--but if you want a visual puzzle, an intellectual challenge, and a cinematic world all its own, Satantango is inimitable