Too many fans seem to be blown away

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A bleak sense of the unreal hangs heavy over every scene of this atmospherically oppressive black and white 'apocalyptic film-noir', from Hungarian director, Bela Tarr.With a bar full of chatter-less men, accompanied by the odd clack from a pool table ball, a lone accordion laments. I so pictured Greta Garbo, or Marlene Dietrich half drawling, half wailing into the microphone, in another scene at the seedy Titanik Club. Known in the credits only as 'the singer', our subject is the forlorn Vali Kerekes, usually looking straggled by the rain, or just life itself, as she aimlessly - and toxically, a predatory abuser of all the men she has contact with, floats in and out of her life.True, Tarr's unrelenting melancholic, drifting camera, wafting like the blankets of fog, black and white images that evoke an earnest socio documented photo assignment from times past, won't ever be considered essential viewing at The Samaritans. However, there is a certain dreary prose to it all, that perhaps, this is what love and life is really like - and about.Sliding into an image, cinematographer Gabor Medivgy, meticulously composes every frame, even the most mundane. Sound is a key part to Tarr's work; a scene will almost be static, seemingly for many minutes (but actually seconds), such as the lovers embraced, naked, to the monotonous mechanical sound of the rail depot, the camera then swings so slowly round the room, to an image in the mirror of the couple now silently making love, then sweeping at the same speed to an old piano. This is simply masterful - a masterclass for all those interested in the art of film-making.I could go on, but will say that Damnation shouldn't be anyone's introduction to World, or indeed, Hungarian cinema. It could irreparably taint your outlook for a very long time! But for those seasoned in all forms of cinema and when viewed in suitable conditions (not a sunny day, but at night or on a rainy day; perfect) it is both compelling and oddly poetically beautiful.Compared to Bela Tarr's more well-known - and accessible 'Werckmeister Harmonies', this is more down to earth, the fantastical element has been replaced by an ugly dreary reality. So, please don't assume that because you enjoyed '...Harmonies', you necessarily will like Damnation too.

Damnation (1988) **** Although he made a number of feature films previous to Damnation, this is where Bela Tarr found his trademark style. It was also his first collaboration with novelist and country man Laszlo Krasznahorkai; a collaboration which continues to this day.The film opens with now trademark Tarr style, watching mining carts travel along with their loads for a few minutes (yes minutes). The camera slowly pulls back to reveal Karrer (Miklós Székely) shaving. He's a lonely loser, slowly drinking himself to death at the Titanik Bar. He is in love with and sleeping with the lounge singer there (Vali Kerekes). The problem, however, is that she is married, and has made no secret of wanting to end their affair. That when he asks her why she doesn't love him, and she replies "I love you and you know it," is of no real matter to her.Karrer is offered a smuggling job by the bar's shady owner. He decides to offer the job to the singer's husband, who has built up a substantial debt and is in danger of being imprisoned for it. He accepts, and Karrer wins himself three days to swoon the singer. She denies him, nevertheless sleeping with him in perhaps the least passionate sex scene ever filmed. A bitter Karrer decides he will turn in to the authorities her husband when he returns from his smuggling job, leaving her alone and thus making him now the logical option. By the end, the lives of Damnation's characters will be as broken and desolate as the crumbling town in which they live.Damnation plays as love triangle, grounded out over nearly two hours. Tarr's long shots and elegantly bleak black and white photography follows ever so slowly the action. The lighting is impeccable, creating ghostly silhouettes, dusty and dim barrooms, and elegant and shimmering light bouncing of the face and hair of the lounge singer. As characteristic of Bela Tarr, the cinematography is stately and assured, breathtaking and deliberate. He films his characters and their town as assuredly and respectfully as possible. The town, and the dogs which walk its streets, hint at the apocalyptic undertones of the film, and transcends all emotions, or lack there of.I have had reservations about Damnation in the past, confident that it was film-making at its very best, sublimely atmospheric and tonal, but unsure whether or not just how well it worked, particularly in relation to Tarr's two formidable masterpieces, Satantango and Werckmeister Harmonies. Those films have something mammoth and intimidating about them: Satantango, with its titanic length, clocking in at over 7 hours, all in the same style and minimal narrative; Werckmeister Harmonies with its bizarre metaphysical underpinnings and suggestive philosophy. Those films have a ground out dreamlike – or perhaps nightmarish – quality to them, particular Werckmeister Harmonies. After my fourth of fifth viewing of Damnation, I'm now assured that it does in fact work – particularly when you avoid getting hung up on Tarr's other films. I'm also assured of its greatness. Damnation is a masterpiece of film-making. It draws parallels with the Italian realist films of the 50s and early 60s, as well as the minimalist transcendentalism of the films of Robert Bresson, but all the while invoking a dreamlike quality that keeps the viewer removed at just the right distance for a gritty but transcendent experience.

Who is Bela Tarr? A filmmaker who enjoy taking log takes to torment the audience? Of course not. We can see his films and naturally, maybe, his movies become boring. In my case, when i watch the movies which takes long more than 2 hours, i need a break with no question! That movie can be one of the Harry Potters or Barry Lyndon. And of course, Bela Tarr and his own cinema has his own place in my list!The people and critics who liked "Damnation", talked about camera work and sound designing. The movie is taken in black and withe with high-contrast images. The images are taken in deep-focus with 2-3 layers. the camera always moves softly (in Crane or tilt or pan). I think this movements are the points of the film: I was wondered why the movie does not bother me, and i found the images are not hiding things from the camera but try to find something between the layers. In a scene, we see an old woman who looks out of the frame and talks to a person. In the shot, we find two person in gangster-like clothes. They are standing by the old woman. In a second, the camera moves back and we see those were not the gangsters, they are two coats and there is a store. Or, in this case, for example, i can remind you the opening shot.In an interview with Bela Tarr i read recently, Tarr said "I think the cinema means image". This is not a special sentence, but it guides us to find his films more interesting. Tarr's cinema without these kind of images would become like so simple films which are called Exotic films by some critics.

...I think most people would be inclined to walk out. I might myself in a different mood. If the somnambulist from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" made a movie, it would be something like this: sloooooooow, droooooooowsy, like roaming a rainy city by night, stopping for a while in an empty, smoky bar, though it doesn't matter whether you're inside or out, sitting or walking, asleep or awake, it's all the same. If you've ever been in that state and would care to see it reproduced in a film, this is that film, but I doubt whether it means much more.It certainly doesn't describe damnation. Sleepwalking in a mental and moral stupor makes a good metaphor for life, but surely it applies to the saved as well as the damned? This film is always stepping in and out of self-parody: we get the point of every shot and every speech in about one-sixth the time allowed; we can predict whenever a dog--the same dog?--is about to skulk into frame to cross the dreary street or the dreary waste; and the first of the lyric interludes that punctuate the story is a one-note, narcoleptic, androgynous chanson that sounds like Dietrich on Valium.The same director's "Satantango" opens with a ten-minute shot of cows coming out of a barn in the morning and dispersing through the barnyard. The film is seven hours long. I'm not pure enough in spirit for that, but this one I can about manage.