The Bijou is perhaps my favorite space at CalArts. It’s a small theater. Seats about 120 people and an unspecified number of dogs. (invariably you be in the middle of some feature and hear gerrrrr-Rouffff … rowf ra-ra-ffff rowf) I spent many a happy evening and afternoon of my graduate tenure watching films amazing to abstruse. During that time I had the great fortune to meet Béla Tarr when he lectured and presented Sátántangó. It played twice and I deeply enjoyed all four hundred thirty nine minutes both nights.
Irimiás and Petrina go to the police station, where they have a meeting with the captain. At the same time in the village Estike goes out with his brother, Sanyi, to bury some money in the ground to make it grow into a money tree. Both events take place during the daytime when the rain is not falling. Later Irimiás and Petrina drink in the pub in town, where Kelemen sees them. Halics visits Estike’s mother. Estike tortures and finally kills her cat in the attic of their house. In the meantime a heavy rain starts. Halics leaves their house, and Estike finds out that the money has disappeared; someone has stolen it. Kelemen returns to the village, enters the pub, and reports to the bartender on his meeting with Irimiás and Petrina in town and on the road to the village. Halics is already in the pub.
Continue reading “Sátántangó, He walks to the lonely chapel, where a madman rings the bell. He goes home and boards up the window.”