Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Werckmeister Harmonies

EMAILPRINTAnthology Film Archives

Werckmeister Harmonies reviews
92
7.0 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama

Written by: Béla Tarr
László Krasznahorkai (novel The Melancholy of Resistance)
Péter Dobai, Gyuri Dósa Kiss, and György Fehér (additional dialogue)

Directed by: Béla Tarr
Ágnes Hranitzky

Release Date:
Theatrical: October 10, 2001
DVD: February 28, 2006

Running Time: 145 minutes, B/W

Origin: Germany / France / Hungary

Language(s): German and Hungarian (with English subtitles)

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla, János Derzsi, and Djoko Rosic

Based on László Krasznahorkai's novel "The Melancholy of Resistance," this is an uncanny fable about powerlessness and tyranny. Set in a small Hungarian village at a moment of great crisis, a mysterious circus comes to town with a giant whale and news of an appearance by a Prince known for his strange powers. Soon the locals' emotions are stirred to a fever pitch of anticipation. (Anthology Film Archives)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This is as challenging as movies come, alluding to everything from philosopher Thomas Hobbes to the history of Western music.

Read Full Review >
100

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

An indelible statement on loneliness and spiritual thirst.

Read Full Review >
100

New York Post V.A. Musetto

While Tarr's newest epic, Werckmeister Harmonies, isn't intended for the shopping-mall crowd, it is more viewer-friendly and will please adventurous moviegoers.

Read Full Review >
90

New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein

The pacing is slow, but the film is entrancing and earns a permanent place in the viewer's mind.

Read Full Review >
90

The New York Times Lawrence Van Gelder

Mysterious, poetic and allusive, The Werckmeister Harmonies beckons filmgoers who complain of the vapidity of Hollywood movie making and yearn for a film to ponder and debate.

Read Full Review >
90

Variety Derek Elley

A stunning feature -- another hypnotic meditation on popular demagogy and mental manipulation.

Read Full Review >
80

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A work of bravura filmmaking.

Read Full Review >
80

TV Guide Ken Fox

The film could easily be reduced to a parable of post-Communist Eastern Europe, but the allegory digs deeper into the very order of things, exemplified by 17th-century musicologist Andreas Werckmeister's arbitrary imposition of a "tempered" tonal system over naturally occurring tunings.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 40 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

sean k gave it a10:
Everything about this movie clicked for me. The acting was perfect, the long takes were mesmerizing, the symbolism was powerful, the metaphorical relationship of music to nature and man-made control, and everything else this movie had to offer was absolutely perfect. I loved it.

david g gave it a10:
If this is not among the top 10% of the thousands of movies that have been released in the world in the last hundred years, there must be a huge disconnect between popularity and quality: a problem with the idea of voting for the good itself.

nick p gave it a10:
Mysterious, dark and beautiful. I feel like I still don't fully understand it after watching it 3 times but still amazing.

Reza T gave it a10:
Abbas Kiarostami`s career died a couple of years ago when he started using digital Cameras. I was depressed for a couple of years as I felt true artistic cinema has died. Thanks to Béla Tarr I realized I was wrong.

Robert H. gave it a5:
Tedious beyond belief. the interest comes in watching someone struggle unsuccessfully to manufacture art. the kind of allegory on display here because there is so little context just comes off as silly. the kind of film I love to hate and for that reason worth watching.

Alex D gave it a9:
Reading user comments is hilarious. I love it when someone like Brad C. below stumbles unwittingly into a challenging experiment like this one, it flies over his head, and he ends up raging against his own befuddlement. Hey Brad: poorly filmed? Really? I know you were bored, but those long takes are objectively, undeniably masterful in execution. And pointless? I'd say you just didn't get any of its many, complicated "points." In any case, a completely mesmerizing experience, for those hip to Bella Tarr's out-there wavelength.

Dan B. gave it a2:
A huge disappointment. I'm all for very long takes and little plot--the films of Tsai Ming-Liang, for example, are mesmerizing to me--but I found this movie a chore to sit through.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use