Damnation

Title: Damnation
Release Date: 1988
Director: Béla Tarr

Bela Tarr continues to absolutely floor me with every single shot he produces. Just days after viewing the masterpiece known as Werckmeister Harmonies, I’m subject to a previous film by him, Damnation. This film, when juxtaposed with Werckmeister Harmonies, stands shoulder to shoulder beside it.

The film is filled with symbolic imagery, drab landscapes and stark black and white cinematography. The shots are just as satisfying as they are prudent, the camera drifting off into the shallow depths of the muddy fields it portrays. The story is simple. A man falls in love with a married singer and attempts to lure the husband away allowing him more time with the women. A simple story delving into the deepest questions of human existence, an existential journey through the rainy fields of our linear plane of existence. The film portrays life’s banalities, it stalks and questions the very existence of our lives and this insipid paradigm we thrive in.

The entire span of the film is unbearably hopeless, prolonged shots futher expand upon the emptiness the protoganist trudges through. It’s almost as if the film reveals the last days of earth, the end of time and final moments of his somber life. The continues shots of torrential rainfall and wild packs of lost dogs further push hope and it’s futility upon the viewer. The final scene in the film is painstakingly brilliant in every possible way. I don’t want to elaborate, but it ties in with several of the conversations had throughout the film. Pay attention. The dog a story, the man a story, the rain a story, all disintegrating into some abysmal void never to be seen again. All stories eventually decay and disintegrate, all heroes eventually die.

Symbolism, whether Bella Tarr realizes it or not, is heavily present in his film. It’s ignorant to claim the opening scene, the dogs, the rain, the fog, the dancing and subtle calamity that the characters are subject to is all for nothing, for pure cinematic effect. Damnation is yet another brilliant work of art, another cinematic masterpiece that somehow slipped by me unnoticed. See this film by yourself, without any distractions or outside influences or preconceptions. It’s a personal voyage through desolation and reclusive resurrection, a personal abandonment of entitlement and self worth. Your story, in the end, will soon enough dissipate.

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