The Aesthetics of Damnation: Corvinus Film Club Commemorates the Work of Béla Tarr

Damnation 

Released in 1987, Damnation marked a turning point in the director’s career. It was in this film that his signature slow, meditative visual style—which later defined the success of Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies—fully blossomed. The story portrays the fate of vulnerable people living on the periphery, where the question—in the words of writer László Krasznahorkai—is no longer what is at stake in life, but “whether anything is at stake in it at all.” 

According to director Attila Janisch, Tarr’s films are extraordinary because they are simultaneously experimental and deeply empathetic: “He always spoke of the fallen and the vulnerable with great empathy for them.”