Béla Tarr, Departing for a Cosmically Expanding Cinematic Space

I heard that Béla Tarr has passed away. Even as I write it down, it doesn't feel quite real. Perhaps it is due to the distance separating Hungary and Japan, or perhaps it is because Béla Tarr was such an otherworldly presence.

It feels annoying to simply write that Béla Tarr was the shock of Sátántangó, as it seems to generalize him into the masses, but I still vividly remember the shock of watching a Béla Tarr film for the first time. Had there ever been a director who shot a feature film with such long takes? A fixed shot; a person who was in the foreground walks with slow steps to the other side of the screen until they become a mere dot. Following a character from the moment they leave their house until they reach the town square in a single shot. I may be shallow, but has there ever been a director who did such a thing before?

To shoot a film is to keep the camera rolling. While the camera is rolling, a cinematic space expands within it. If cutting during filming means pulling a cosmically expanding world back into reality each time, then in Béla Tarr's films, that space continues to expand infinitely. It is burned onto the film as if to serve as irrefutable evidence that even beyond the horizon lies the space of the film.

I do not think the characters Béla Tarr depicts have a sense of dynamism. Rather, they seem to be enduring. Their figures walking into a headwind seem less like they are boldly challenging something and more like they have no other choice. It is no wonder that such figures, which at first glance lack spectacle, are thought to be not like feature films but like watching a documentary. However, to me, such figures seem even more like a feature film. That is because I see people living within that cinematic expanse. The fact that people enduring in impossibly long takes are captured so vividly is precisely why it is a feature film. It is because I see the breath of the people who created the film, including Béla Tarr, the actors, and the staff.

To tell the truth, the sense of discomfort I feel in Béla Tarr's films lies in this very part. His feature films are undoubtedly feature films, but that is because their breath leaks through. Therefore, I find it difficult to unconditionally praise his work as excellent, but on the other hand, when I listen closely to that breath, the cinematic expanse and the figures of Béla Tarr and his crew, watching with bated breath from behind the camera, emerge hazily. When I think of their feelings at that moment, don't I feel strangely moved? They are working as one to create a feature film. When I think of Béla Tarr and his crew, quietly yet excitedly enduring as they watch their child grow, like parents watching over a cinematic space that expands infinitely, I simply cannot bring myself to dislike his films. Ah, I think to myself, Béla Tarr really loved cinema. I sometimes imagine Béla Tarr being released and expanding infinitely into the cinematic expanse, but perhaps that is boorish. Is that where the sense of unreality regarding Béla Tarr's passing comes from?