“Satan Tango” running time 7 hours and 18 minutes! Legendary works question the nature of film

*Information as of October 2019 article publication.

“Satantango” synopsis

A rural town in Hungary. Schmidt tells his wife about his plan to team up with Cranel and run away with the villagers' savings. Futaki, who was eavesdropping, thought of joining in on the conversation himself. At that moment, there is a knock on the door of the house, and the woman who comes to the house says something unbelievable. ``Irimiash, who was supposed to have died a year and a half ago, has returned.'' When the villagers hear that Irimiash is coming back, they start a heated discussion at the bar, but before they know it, a drinking party turns into a party and the night goes on. The next day, Irimiash returns to the village. Is he the savior for the village? Or?

Index

• The legendary feature film is finally released in theaters in Japan for the first time.
• Amazing long takes and moving shots
• An attempt to break through the contradictions between the essence of “time” and film.

The legendary feature film is finally released in theaters in Japan for the first time.

``Satantango'' (1994) by the Hungarian master Tal Béla is a work that is colored by numerous legends. The movie had a running time of 7 hours and 18 minutes, and took 9 years to prepare, 2 years to shoot, and 4 years to complete. When the film was released in 1994, it immediately received rave reviews around the world, with Gus Van Sant and Jim Jarmusch professing to have been strongly influenced by the film. It was even said that watching it would change your life.

In 2019, 25 years after its release, ``Satantango'' underwent a 4K digital restoration. Each frame of the 35mm negative print was scanned in 4K, and it took over 300 hours to remove scratches and dirt to recreate the texture of the original film. The finish of the 4K version, which director Tal Béla has acknowledged, is nothing short of stunning, and the stark monochrome images of Hungary's desolate landscape are mesmerizing.

"Satantango"

The story of ``Satantango'' is very simple. A certain news is brought to the people living in a cold village in Hungary. It turns out that a man named Ilimiash, who was thought to have died a year ago, is still alive. The villagers were in shock when they heard the news. Who exactly is Irimiash, and what will happen when he appears to the villagers?

The original work is a novel of the same name by Hungarian author László Kraszzłócály, who is a regular candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The most eye-catching feature of this film is its running time of 7 hours and 18 minutes, which is incredibly long for a single movie. If you look back at the history of film, there are many long films, such as `` Fanny and Alexander '' (1982, directed by Ingmar Bergman), which lasts 5 hours and 11 minutes, and `` 1900 '' (1976, directed by Ingmar Bergman, which runs 5 hours and 16 minutes). The first thing that comes to mind is Bernardo Bertolucci). In recent years, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's `` Happy Hour '' (2015) was 5 hours and 17 minutes, and Lav Diaz's `` The Woman Who Walked Away '' (16) was 3 hours and 48 minutes. Among them, ``Satantango'' is by far the longest at 7 hours and 18 minutes.

“1900” preview

It was my first experience watching such a long film on a movie theater screen, but after the movie, the theater was filled with a unique atmosphere, and I felt a sense of solidarity with the strangers in the audience. Something like this was even born. You could say it was an experience of the movie itself.

However, don't get me wrong, the film's running time is not just an oddity or a meaningless redundancy. The running time of over seven hours is inseparable from the form of expression that permeates the entire Satantango, and is a natural outcome.

Amazing long takes and moving shots