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A Londoni férfi (The Man from London)
Béla Tarr, director
Hungary/France/Germany, 2007

Co-Director: Ágnes Hranitzky
Screenplay: László Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr
Based on the novel L’Homme de Londres by Georges Simenon
Director of Photography: Fred Kelemen
Art Director: László Rajk, Ágnes Hranitzky, Jean-Pascal Chalard
Editor: Ágnes Hranitzky
Music: Mihály Vig
Sound: György Kovács
Costume Designer: János Breckl
Producers: Gábor Téni, Paul Saadoun, Miriam Zachar, Joachim von Vietinghoff, Christoph Hahnheiser

Cast: Miroslav Krobot (Maloin), Tilda Swinton (Mrs. Maloin), Erika Bók (Henriette), János Derzsi (Brown), Ági Szirtes (Mrs. Brown), István Lénárt (Morrison)

At 135 minutes, The Man from London is an ideal introduction to the work of Béla Tarr, if you haven’t seen his seven-hour masterpiece Satantango (1994).

The movie opens with a long, absorbing dockside sequence, viewed from a hidden vantage that turns out to be a signal tower manned by Maloin, a hapless lug masterfully played by Miroslav Krobot (incidentally the art director of Theatre of Dejvice in Prague). Over the next hour we meet Maloin’s wife (another tour de force performance by Tilda Swinton, albeit dubbed), daughter Henriette (Erika Bók, who debuted in Satantango at age 11), and nemesis Brown (János Derzsi). Two more key players appear in the second hour, the detective Morrison (brilliantly played by István Lénárt) and Brown’s wife (Ági Szirtes, in fearless closeup).

Tarr and photography director Fred Kelemen are heirs to the great Central European photographers of the mid-Twentieth Century, with the advantages of motion, music, and obsessively nuanced sound design. The movie took five years to produce, and none of the work was wasted.

If you’re lucky, you’ll see The Man from London with a room full of strangers, on a big screen, in the dark.

FROM THE FORTISSIMO FILMS PROGRAM

Synopsis: Maloin leads a simple life without prospects at the edge of the infinite sea; he barely notices the world around him, but has already accepted the slow and inevitable deterioration of life around him and his all but complete loneliness. When he becomes a witness to a murder, his life takes a sudden turn. He comes face to face with issues of morality, sin, punishment, the line between innocence and complicity in a crime, and this state of scepsis leads him to the ontological question of the meaning and worth of existence. The film is about desire, man’s indestructible longing for a life of freedom and happiness, about illusions never to be realised - about things that give all of us energy to continue living, to go to sleep and get up day after day… Maloin’s story is ours - all of those who doubt and are able to question our humdrum existence.

Director’s Notes: If I have to say why I like and was drawn to this story, then the direct answer is that it deals with the eternal and the everyday at one and the same time. At one and the same time, it deals with the cosmic and the realistic, the divine and the human and, to my mind, contains the totality of nature and man, just as it contains their pettiness.
I came to love Maloin. Maloin lives simply, without prospects, beside the infinite sea, takes little notice of the world around him, accepts his slow and inevitable deterioration and almost complete isolation. Gradually his contacts shrink and become mechanical, perhaps he remains closest to his daughter Henriette.
When Maloin witnesses a murder, his life changes. He has to confront the moral questions of what constitutes crime and punishment, where to draw the line between innocence and complicity in a crime, scepticism leads him to questioning the very meaning and worth of existence. The temptation of a new life of a different quality takes hold over him.
Maloin accepts the hardest test of all, and after committing the most serious crime of all, even with his innocence lost, he tries to retain his honor. Old, balding and lined in the face, yet he finally becomes a man. But manhood and wisdom may be too much to live with. His attempt to create a new and different life ends in failure.
Maloin’s story is our story, personally I feel it particularly as my own, familiar and close, unfriendly and harsh, just like the surroundings in which it is played out. The film’s tone is thus personal, each frame reflects how I see the world and through its simplicity of style, I am trying to bring to life the complexity of Maloin’s working-class surroundings, with as much authenticity and affection as possible.
If I have to describe the style and structure of the film, I would first have to say that the film’s composition and rhythm is determined by the monotony of Maloin’s working day. We are constantly at his side, we follow him around and see the world through his eyes. We climb up the steps to his signal cabin with him, and come down them with him to go to the café. We drink a brandy with him and go and buy fish for lunch with him. These uneventful days repeat themselves with a different meaning, Maloin’s duel with Brown and the rising tension puts them in a new context. Everything we have seen turns into something else, whatever was familiar becomes alien, whatever was easeful becomes hectic, whatever was comforting becomes threatening.
We enter into this spiral, following its every turn. Our attention is drawn into the inner processes of the human being. The constantly moving camera will trace the eyes, follow all signs of meta-communication and zoom in softly from open vistas to close-ups. The camer is inside and outside at the same time, it concentrates on faces, especially the eyes; yet in every scene we are always looking outwards, we see the harbour and the sea, we feel closed in and, with this, the temptation of infinite freedom.
The foggy, dank, black-and-white images, the drifting shadows under dim lights and the moonlight reflected in the bay lend a special beauty to the drama unfolding before us. The film speaks about desire, man’s indestructible longing for a life of freedom and happiness, about illusive dreams never to be realized, about what gives all of us the strength to go on living, to go to bed and get up day after day…
I am convinced that Maloin’s story belongs not just to me, but belongs to all those with doubts and questions about our humdrum existence, yet are able to resist temptation: to all that have the courage to preserve their human dignity.

29 July 2003
Béla Tarr

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