Cast: Miklós Székely B., Vali Kerekes, Gyula Pauer, György Cserhalmi, Hédi Temessy. Screenplay: László Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr. Cinematography: Gábor Medvigy. Art direction: Gyula Pauer. Film editing: Ágnes Hranitzky. Music: Mihály Vig.
Damnation is all about lateral movement. It opens with a long, silent sequence in which we watch carts suspended from cables travel back and forth across a bleak, damp industrial landscape. Gradually the camera pulls back to reveal the window we’re watching through, and then the man sitting there looking through the window, until finally the back of his head fills the screen. This is Karrer, who is carrying on a love affair with a married woman who sings in a bar ominously called the Titanik. What story there is concerns Karrer’s attempt to get the woman’s husband in trouble by involving him in a smuggling mission. But mostly the film is about the back-and-forth of the two partners in the affair. And Tarr’s camera continues its slow, itchy travels back and forth, moving slowly across each scene as we await what it might reveal next. Karrer gets advice from a bartender and he gets lectures from the woman who runs the cloakroom in the Titanik. But there’s not much action, apart from a scene in which people are dancing, and one in which Karrer, traveling across the rain-drenched lanscape, comes across a dog, who barks and growls at him, whereupon Karrer gets down on all fours and growls and barks back. Otherwise, there’s only the slow lateral movement of the camera, accentuated often by the steady downpour of rain. You know from this description whether you want to watch Damnation, but I have to say I found it oddly compelling.
