Directed by Bela Tarr
Score by Mihály Vig
Sound mixer Gábor ifj. Erdélyi
When I first saw this movie I must confess I was in front of my laptop with my headphones on. After the first sequence (I will not go into details about the plot, you can read a review here but better than that, go and see the movie!) I knew the amazing certainty that I should go to the cinema and watch it in the big screen. The cinematography and use of sound were worth the waiting. This is a feeling I didn’t have in a long time, not because I had become addicted to downloadable films but just because of the fact that you don’t get to see the movies you want at the big screen that often. So you have to resign yourself to the timid yet high-resolution screen of your computer. Nevertheless, for the passionate of special effects, foleys, room tones, recorded dialogue and other elements composing the soundtrack of a film, the experience of sitting at a movie in the theater is irreplaceable.
The film is a master piece, a story so simple and yet so powerful and universal, told through merely 30 long shots that last a demanding 2 hours 30 minutes. And this is key to understand the way Bela Tarr proceeds to create a film where very little happens and yet nothing could be more important than the tragedy his characters are going through.
This is a film where one can easily understand what is at stake when it comes to the role of sound in a film. Sound design is a massive component of any film but in this film it is put at the front row, only in few occasions are we that aware of the art of sound manipulation.
Let’s say that there are two spaces in the film: the outside world dominated by a wind-whipped blaze, and the inside world of a father and daughter living the most monotonous of existences in a humble yet solid hovel. Let’s say that the they outside world sounds like the real windy atmosphere that you would expect from a small Hungarian town during winter, the inside world, though, sounds quiet artificial, the foleys or sounds recorded to match an action with its aural counterpart share them all this unrealistic characteristic. They sound like they were being amplified, louder. Fidelity, one of the dimensions of sound in relation to image, has been manipulated by a change in volume. Is it the unbearable silence that prevails in the almost inexistent father-daughter relationship that makes every whisper to sound magnified? It might be, but in any case is a wisely maneuver the sound mixer uses to create a psychological reaction in us spectators. The hovel becomes then a denatured space.
It is quite remarkable the use of diegetic sounds. One characteristic of diegetic sound is to suggest a distance to the source. The louder the sound the nearest it seems to be from us. Those foleys magnified in volume are also there to shift our attention to the routine of the characters and to get us closer to their actions intensifying the privacy of the atmosphere and making us part of what is going on “stage” (due to the long shots you have the impression to be sitting at a play instead of a movie).
The austerity of actions allows us to focus on the brilliant use of sound and cinematography. I am glad I waited to see this film in the big screen and surrender to its hypnotic spell for 210 minutes.
