There is something truly metaphysical about the opening of
Bela Tarr’s The Man From London. More
than any other shot in his filmography, this opening shot, as well as much of
the rest of the film, Tarr feels to be manifesting existence before his camera. I love the openings to both Satantango and The Turin Horse, but the operations at work under those shots is of a very different quality of what Tarr does here. Many perceive that the long take in cinema creates a sense of realism. But in The Man From London, Tarr’s long aren’t
capturing reality, they seem to construct
reality itself. Until the camera
exposes us to what we see, I’m not sure that the location beyond the sight of
the camera actually exists.
