The Expanding and Contracting Camera: Béla Tarr's 'Werckmeister Harmonies'

There are two words for time in Greek. One is Chronos (χρόνος), and the other is Kairos (καιρός).

While Chronos time represents the flow of time that moves at a constant speed and in a constant direction from the past to the future, or in other words, objective time, Kairos time represents the flow of time as felt by individuals, or in other words, subjective time.

The greatest achievement of 20th-century literature was likely the discovery of this Kairos time. Whether it be the 'stream of consciousness' literature represented by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner, Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time', or the Japanese 'I-novel' which uses 'I' as the first-person narrator, many literary works emerged and became mainstream where the density of the narrative changes according to the intensity of the narrator's subjective 'feelings'. Because of this, literature became able to handle not only physical phenomena but also individual internal psychological processes.

As such, Kairos time is now widely circulated as a literary rhetoric, and this is because novels and manga are media that are not subject to the constraints of the physical world. The worlds within novels and manga are fantasy worlds that are completed only within individual imaginations, and therefore, the super-physical progression of time known as Kairos time is permitted.

However, in the Chronos time that flows in the real world (the physical world), one second is absolutely one second, and it will never expand or contract under any circumstances. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to depict Chronos time in the medium of film, which is only established by partially transcribing the physical world and rearranging those pieces.

Or rather, one could say that film is a medium that has strongly resisted depicting the inner lives of individuals. Film critic Shigehiko Hasumi is a good example; he insisted thoroughly on 'watching only what is projected' (surface criticism). To him, films that easily overlay psychological descriptions with monologues are already 'dishonest' as films at that point. The dominance of Kairos time in the medium of film seeps through here.

Nevertheless, it is certainly true that the world before one's eyes changes significantly depending on one's own 'feelings'. Otherwise, the concept of Chronos would not have been born.

Now, is there no way to express subjective 'feelings' in the medium of film? I believe this work, 'Werckmeister Harmonies', can be a radical answer to this question.

The most notable feature of this work is, above all, the persistent long takes throughout the entire film. There are many filmmakers for whom long takes are impressive, but it is rare for the camera body itself to be so hyperactive. For example, Theo Angelopoulos is a filmmaker with as many long takes as Béla Tarr, but in his case, the camera is basically fixed on a tripod.

Why is Béla Tarr's camera so hyperactive? More to the point, why does it repeat the approach to and withdrawal from the subject so exaggeratedly?

I previously spoke about the expansion and contraction of time in literature, and my assessment is that Béla Tarr is realizing that not on the axis of time, but on the axis of space.

The camera that keeps following the postman János repeats expansion and contraction. For example, in the scene where János goes to see the giant whale exhibit that has come to town, the camera moves from a distant position to approach the whale exhibit so closely that it seems to be János's own perspective. It is as if it shows János's absorption in the whale exhibit. János shows an obsessive interest in the whale exhibit. That is precisely why the field of view of the camera is limited in a nearsighted way.

Or in the final scene, where a helicopter circles above János. The camera, which had been following János walking on the railroad tracks, is gradually drawn to the helicopter overhead and zooms in. The helicopter floating in the gray sky, and the camera staring at it from close range. The relative positional relationship with the surroundings is lost, and the helicopter sways precariously within the frame.

There is an idiomatic expression, "to be so focused that one loses sight of one's surroundings," and these shots realize that very state on a technical level. While 20th-century literature achieved the effect of a subjective "feeling" by expanding and contracting time, Béla Tarr managed to do the same by expanding and contracting space.

A brief digression.

The concept of subjectivity is also important in distinguishing the authorship of Béla Tarr from that of Theo Angelopoulos.

Angelopoulos was a filmmaker who devoted himself to documenting history through cinema. As demonstrated by his "Border Trilogy"—consisting of his masterpieces *The Travelling Players*, *Ulysses' Gaze*, *Eternity and a Day*, and *Voyage to Cythera*—his primary interest lay in the allegorical retelling of the bleak history experienced by his homeland, Greece, and its neighboring countries.

Unlike novels or essays, the value of history is guaranteed by the objectivity of its description. Therefore, his camera is always placed at a distance from the subject. He does not use arbitrary zooms in or out. After clearly surveying the overall picture with a fixed shot, he calmly and sincerely records the events that emerge and fade within it.

On the other hand, Béla Tarr focuses on "individual feeling" (i.e., novels, essays). Therefore, his camera expands and contracts freely. Space is arbitrarily distorted to match the subject's state of mind.

Although both Angelopoulos and Tarr are "long-take filmmakers," their main focuses generate completely opposite lineages: Angelopoulos with "objective-fixed," and Béla Tarr with "subjective-hyperactive."

As a further digression, the technical methodology of this film would be vividly inherited about 20 years later by Hu Bo's *An Elephant Sitting Still*.

With its extreme long takes and expanding/contracting camerawork, *An Elephant* is a monstrous work that used the very methodology of this film to depict the groans of lonely souls living on the fringes of China.

Hu Bo was such a brilliant talent that Béla Tarr himself said, "His gaze had a certain outstanding individuality. Hundreds of Chinese filmmakers approached me for a collaboration, but for me, there was no doubt it was only Hu Bo (http://indietokyo.com/?p=13133)." And Hu Bo also revered Tarr as "someone more important than my parents (ibid.)."

However, Hu Bo passed away after making this film as his first and last major work. Béla Tarr deeply regretted his death from the bottom of his heart.

In recent years, Béla Tarr has effectively retired from directing and holds workshops around the world to discover young directors.

Among Japanese filmmakers, *Mine* by Kaori Oda is probably well-known. Perhaps the death of that young Chinese talent is always lingering in the mind of Béla Tarr, who pours his heart and soul into discovering young talent.

That's all for today. Thank you for reading until the end.

(Text by: 8th Film Manager, Inga Okamoto)