The Man from London

The night is quiet, shapes of faint, lifeless forms in the grim perimeters about, the streets lie black and steaming in these alien reaches of a city of curious architecture, much like yours perhaps. This is a world lying in wait, beset by a thing unknown.

When it finally comes it's the hull of a ship, a long vertical shot tracking across a vessel that looks like a bleached bone of a whale washed out on shore. The camera moves three times back and forth on its tracks, as though some kind of ritual must be performed for this to begin.

There's not much plot or story to speak of. A suitcase full of money. A crime committed. Smalltime crooks and an ordinary man in the wrong place the wrong time. The banality of a plot so unmistakeably familiar contrasted with intimate moments, people living some kind of life. Small bursts of life woven into a genre framework so frail and transparent as though to be nonexistent, a form of dramatic percussion to the wandering and the aimlessness. Staccato rhythms throughout the movie abet this, the passage of time. The thumps of a ball on a wall, sounds of billiard from an adjucent room, the slashes of a meat-cleaver, rhythms to which existence can dissipate.

Transfixing and hypnotic, this is the visual equivalent to the albums of drone artists Sunn0))) and their 14 minute monotonous drones. Mostly aural, Tarr's camera ferries us back and forth in these godless corridors, where our only bearing is time.

It doesn't come from anywhere nor goes, it's rather a mantra, whereby repeating it we can concentrate on the texture of the sound itself. And how it reverberates.

I hadn't seen a film by Bela Tarr before, and at first I was put off by the slow, deliberate style - the first scene took about 15 minutes and was agonizingly slow. The whole picture moved at the same lethargic pace and I thought it was remindful of an Ingmar Bergman film. I never felt comfortable with Bergman as I thought his style pretentious, but I got a different feeling from watching "The Man From London".

The slow pace, as in the languid opening shot, accentuates the prevailing mood of the film, and lends motivation (or lack of) to the protagonist Maloin. He is a simple man who has resigned himself to his fate, a boring, tedious existence as a night watchman with a shrewish wife (Tilda Swinton, in a role that is too small), until his life is turned upside down when he witnesses a murder from his watchtower. The picture is full of long, lingering closeups and long shots and the characters speak in the same deliberate manner as the pacing of the film.

I suppose if he had wanted to, Tarr could have edited out about 30 minutes of film to speed it up, but he would have ruined the overall effect of the picture, which exemplifies the predominant mental state of Maloin and the struggle with his conscience that has thrown his life into chaos. You have probably seen films you would like better but you have never seen one as offbeat or as memorable as "The Man From London". Serious movie fans ought to include this one in their respective film canons - it is very worth seeing will certainly throw your list into disarray.

In "The man from London" an ordinary civilian finds by accident a lot of money originating from a criminal transaction. We regularly find this story element in films, for example in "No country for old men" (Ethan and Joel Coen) from the same year.

How different do these two films elaborate on this basic ingredient. In "No country for old men" the "lucky" finder is being chased by a hit man and the emphasis is on action. In "The man from London" the finder is chased by his own guilty feelings and the emphasis is much more on internal psychological elements.

Needless to say that also in the Tarr film the finder ends up everything but lucky. The film has the usual Tarr elements as slowness, bleakness and beautiful images. Especially the first half hour has striking black and white imagery.

Watching this movie I realised that the mood of a Tarr movie has much in common with the mood of a Kaurismaki movie. Erika Bokk belongs to a Tarr movie just as much as Kati Outinen belongs to a Kaurismaki movie. Music from an accordian is indispensable for a Tarr movie just as much as the Finnish tango is for a Kaurismaki movie.

As beautiful as the images are so artificial and clumsy is the dialogue, especially the dialogue of the English inspector . This is in my opinion the main reason why "The man from London" does not for a single moment succeed in its attempt to be a neo noir Tarr style.

The Man from London (2007) ****

After 7 years Bela Tarr makes his return with an adaptation of a Georges Simenon's story. That Tarr has chosen to make an adaptation of a noir novel means that he has chosen to make his own, very unique take on film noir. That in itself has created one of the first rifts that has become evident in the criticism the film has received from fans of Tarr's previous films.

The film opens with a slow pan up from the water to the bow of a ship. The camera slowly climbs up and through the hatch of a watch tower. We stop behind Maloin (Miroslav Krabot) as he watches a conversation between two men on the ship. The camera follows as they leave. One of the men meets someone else on the docks and they get into an argument, and eventually a fight. One falls in the water, taking a case with him that had been thrown from the ship to the other man, Brown. Brown, stunned that the man isn't resurfacing, takes off. Maloin watches, then goes down and fishes the case from the water. He discovers that it is full of money and then meticulously dries out each bill.

This sets up the plot to which the rest of the film will adhere. This is the first major departure from classical Tarr films. The film is dedicated to this plot and the affect the money and crime has on Maloin. After stopping at the pub for a drink Maloin walks home through a beautifully framed alleyway. He sees a young woman mopping the floor, her dress barely covering her behind. We think he must be gawking, only to discover that he is angry that she, his daughter, is forced to mop the floors at work where everyone can "look at her arse." He hides the money from her and his wife, played by British actress Tilda Swinton.

Tarr creates a surprising amount of tension through out the film. Brown, watches Maloin leave his tower and assumes he must know something. He will follow Maloin for much of the rest of the movie. In the aforementioned scene in the ally, we think the camera might stay with Maloin's daughter (Erika Bok) but it only stops to look, and then whip back as we discover Brown is following.

Mihaly Vig's excellent score and the slow, very deliberate camera movements work wonderfully. One particular scene, which done by any one else, may have came across as quite conventional, but the way it is shot and the brooding score transcend it - Maloin awakes from sleep, he walks to the window, , and looks out. Far below on the street is Brown standing in the only lit spot, under a lamp post. He stands there while the camera slowly zooms in. He then walks off.

The film is filled with many transcending moments, and the camera while moving in typical Tarr fashion, also I think is different in a very important way. In Tarr's other films, the camera moves along as a participant. In The Man from London, the camera is simply an observer. This point is evident in one pivotal scene where Maloin will walk into his shed to confront someone while the camera is forced to wait outside. Long takes and slow movements follow the actors wherever they go. Swinton is captured in one particularly beautiful shot as she is totally absorbed into sunlight light, creating an almost ghostly image. Edits are said to be events in themselves in Tarr's films because they occur so rarely. The fades and extended black screens between takes, though different from his other work, I think work perfectly to capture a distinct mood.

It is important that the acting in the film be mentioned. Though all performances are good, perhaps the best comes from Brown's wife, who has only a few lines of dialog. She is confronted by the police inspector who knows that Brown stole the money and has committed murder since the body has now washed up. The camera stays on her face for several minutes as the inspector describes her husband's crimes and what she must do. She displays such a disciplined level of sadness that is truly incredible. No reaction shot has ever seemed so real or so affecting.

Criticisms I think are based in that the film is so similar in style to Tarr's other films that is somewhat confusing to accept that this is essentially a different film. Tarr claims to be making the same film over and over, but there is a very different tone here. He is essentially making film noir. Many have argued that this is a minor work. I disagree. I think this is a very accomplished piece of film. I truly believe that it will be widely accepted as a great film given time. I don't necessarily think that it is as good as Werckmeister Harmonies, or Satantango, but I think it is overall better than Damnation. That said, I must say that I've loved all of Tarr's films.

Of course there are simply those who cannot handle Tarr's endurance test films. One woman declared loudly that it was the worst film she's ever seen. I think this woman needs to see more films. Tarr makes films outside all convention, and I think that The Man from London is outside of his thus far established work. Any great filmmaker will be judged against his previous work, which I think is a shame. Each film should stand on its own merits, and this has not been the case with The Man from London. Herein lays the answer to its criticisms. If you see this film, forget all you know about film, even Tarr's. Sit, and wallow in the film's magnificent black and white shadowy cinematography; allow yourself to become nothing more than what the camera is asking you to.

When you were a kid, did you ever hear the phrase, "You'll understand when you're older"? This weighty, grinding, almost intimidatingly lugubrious film from iconic filmmaker Béla Tarr may make you cringe in your seat as if it is all just too awful to understand.

The Man From London is interminable hours of the most hauntingly composed black and white photography you could see for a long time. There's slow symbolism dense enough to sink the Titanic. You'd beg them to crank the movie faster, but daren't in case it's a masterpiece. As a stylistic exercise it leaves you gasping, but working it all out is another matter. There's a Wagnerian majesty to it. A dignity that defies intellectual comprehension. At least until it has had time to sink in at a deeper level.

The opening shot made me think of that boat that ferried the dead across the River Styx. We see the hull of the ship. It is drained of colour and sunlight. Eventually waves of darkness drift down across the screen like eyelids closing. We are forced to contemplate it. The shimmer of lamplight on the damp dockside. Looking out through the lattice squares of a window, train lines frame the noirish scene. Low key lighting and oblique angles evoke a sense of dread.

We have panned back to take in more of the ship in the desolate jetty. This could be somewhere in Eastern Europe. Somewhere you pull your coat collar around you tight to keep out the damp, dank feelings permeating everything. Somewhere you'd rather not be alone.

Diagonal foreground lines of an overcoat collar intersect our view. We look over the shoulder of someone (Maloin) watching the scene below. There, men dressed in black woollen overcoats and hats. Only their faces highlighted. Steam issuing from between the wheels of a waiting train. A wordless conspiracy over a suitcase. Feel the cold, clammy atmosphere of undetermined threat.

The Man from London proceeds not at the speed of hell freezing over. More like a hell frozen over long ago and never to thaw. Ever. A place from which there is no escape. A god-forsaken wasteland.

The plot, what there is of it, is taken from a story by Simenon. It involves the discovery of a suitcase of money that railway switchman Maolin fishes out of the drink. The corpse comes later. The dosh was stolen. But the mystery, while satisfyingly concluded in its own good time, is little more than a pretext. Enigmatic justice dispensed by a police inspector takes our mind off to unexpected pathways. Hope, hopelessness, redemption (and without any simplistic religious overtones). Justice and humanity. But the real power of the film is in its formalist rejection of cinematic convention. There is a plot, but it is not plot-driven. The landscape, the bare-furnished rooms, are all protagonists, as much as the sullen and uncommunicative characters.

The cinematography cuts the air like a Baltic ice-axe and supports the film's main theses. We first see Tilda Swinton, Maloin's wife, almost as a hidden part of this surly man's own persona. The camera pans up slowly from behind Maloin, revealing her slight figure as she sits opposite him. In another scene, she goes to the window and is totally engulfed by sunshine for a brief second until she closes the shutters to let him sleep. Inside Maolin and his humdrum existence is hope for dignity, for something better. But it seems so unlikely that he can barely face the possibility. Precisely focused shots draw attention to tiny, grimy detail (often further enhanced by use of 'chiaroscuro' deep-shadows lighting). The grain of wood or the lines on skin, or even fingernails. We feel Maloin's almost invincible acceptance of his lot at a painfully deep level.

Compositions have the breathtaking precision and deliberateness of such Tarkovsky masterpieces as Andrei Rublev, but with the megalithic slowness that is one of Tarr's trademarks.

Apart from forcing us to contemplate much more deeply than we are used to in a world of fast-moving, CGI-enhanced cinema, the slowing-down reveals other interesting effects. In one scene, there is a long, unmoving head-shot of the murderer's wife under questioning. She says nothing for several minutes, but we see the gradual build-up of emotion in her features (the scene is reminiscent of Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, which are fortuitously exhibiting in the Edinburgh Festival at the same time as the UK premiere of The Man From London).

The forlorn beauty of The Man From London might inspire you to question the assumptions we make about cinema, instilling a deeper appreciation of the aesthetic possibilities of this wondrous art form. Or you may leave disenchanted, claiming that, however wonderful the characterisation and deep-stage photography exhibition might be, it seems rather less than the sum of its parts. Either way, the coldness of the atmosphere will have eaten into you to such an extent that you long for a bowl of hot soup or a mug of warming coffee. Your body wants to escape the implacable struggles and silences, the constant dirge-like accordion, the austere minimalism, and dialogue designed as much for its audio qualities as its content. And if you do, I hope, like me, you will look back and treasure what you might almost dismiss.