Béla Tarr and Maduro's tracksuit
Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, a master of European cinema, has died at the age of seventy, a premature age (especially at a time when some of the world's despots, like Putin and Xi Jinping, converse before the Forbidden City about the age-old chimera of immortality, so beloved by tyrants). Tarr's cinema is lyrical and stark, visually hypnotic, and narratively characterized by a masterful command of ellipsis and off-screen space. His stories often appear to be almost non-stories, barely formulated situations. But from minimal elements, his films offer a harsh yet compassionate perspective on humanity and the world.
In Werckmeister harmonies (released in 2000 and co-directed by Ágnes Hranitzky, adapting the novel Melancholy of resistance (From his good friend and collaborator, and recent Nobel laureate in literature, László Krasznahorkai), the arrival in a small town of a circus exhibiting a large dead whale serves as the spark that ignites a collective rage, leading to the establishment of a fascist order. At one point in the film, the protagonist, magnificently portrayed by Lars Rudolph, says: "They think because they are afraid, and whoever is afraid understands nothing [...]. There is construction in all the ruins, a relentless, terrible desire to destroy. We cannot find the cause of our hatred and despair. We trampled everything, everything that moved and wouldn't let us move." Et cetera.
As they say, two separate news items are better understood together, so let's remember that the tracksuit Nicolás Maduro was wearing when he was arrested has sold out worldwide. Millions of people are frantically trying to buy it, especially after a famous footballer posted a photo of himself wearing it on social media. The tracksuit, by the way, sells for around 250 euros (anyone who pays 250 euros for a tracksuit, regardless of the brand, must enjoy being ridiculed).
Béla Tarr made his cinematic work alone, with a sense of his own identity and artistic independence that didn't need to be taught, precisely because it was genuine. Whether he received more or less recognition, more or less applause, was of secondary importance to him, as it was to Krasznahorkai, or simply nonexistent. While the news reports his death, the buffoon Trump appears, imitating Macron and insulting the citizens of Venezuela, in front of journalists and sycophants who roar with laughter at the vulgarities of a criminal. Always childish in the most irritating sense of the word, Trump and his henchmen now threaten Latin America, through Colombia and Cuba, and also Europe, targeting Greenland. The great dead whale of the nameless village of Werckmeister harmonies, rotten relative of the one of Moby DickIt decomposes before our very eyes with its unbearable stench.
