Director Bella Tarr is known as the last European film master of the 20th century. The film artist, known for his long takes, touches the unavoidable monotony and mania of human nature with his solemn and far-reaching shots.
The picture begins with the flames dancing in the fireplace and being extinguished, and in the center of the room several drunkards revolve around the old man in the dim light. The young man whispered slowly; the sun was hidden behind the moon, a dark curtain descended, the music sounded, and a kind of dead silence rose. Inexplicable sadness, wrapped in undissipated warmth, escaped into the chill of the young man's oral "eclipse". The camera just slowly pushes, pulls and rotates in the room, indifferently aiming at the drunk and crazy people, linking the distant and mysterious astronomical wonders with the nameless small town tavern. The imagination stretches infinitely under the catalysis of music, an indescribable sad atmosphere. As the young man left, the door was closed and into the darkness.
"The Whale Circus" uses only 39 shots in its entirety. With the joint efforts of several photographers, it presents a strange and glamorous visual picture. The long shot is a common shooting technique. The movement of the lens realizes the natural transformation of space, and the harmonious connection between the part and the whole maintains the uninterrupted time process, which is consistent with the actual time and process. The director even slowed down the film speed to slow down the passage of time in the picture and fix it in a certain scene space. The story is not important in this film. The black and white images and the heavy gray tones tear and tickle the hearts of the audience through the long shots.
A huge truck carrying taxidermy whales wedged into a remote town, bringing rumors. Deep-sea whales seem unrelated to the inland widowers, but they are closely related. From the outset, it was taken as a metaphorical symbol of a mysterious power, opening the way for the overflow of negative emotions; this behemoth lay innocently in the dark of the carriage, blocking the light like the ugly moon.
We witness a "solar eclipse" from the point of view of Jonas, a thin young man. The sky and the earth were dark, and the apocalyptic atmosphere spread like a plague. Countless people poured out of the streets and alleys and rushed into the hospital, beating the weak with a vengeance and destroying furniture and utensils. The soulless creatures were devastated wherever they went, as if the darkness had given them the courage to riot, or more precisely through their excuses. Darkness comes suddenly, and evil bursts out from the bottom of my heart. It is difficult to say whether it is the wonderful influence of natural phenomena or the true expression of its inherent nature?
Silent, silent, still silent; madness, madness, extreme madness.
They broke into the bathroom and finally stopped. Facing a dying old man, curled up under the spray, the naked skin sags and droops, the folds are full, and the organs that symbolize masculinity are also drooping. The light and the dark are distinct, the old man in the light and the thug in the shadow. The invisible boundary flows with the sound of rushing water, and time freezes at that moment. The composition, light and shadow, and the soundtrack merge in the dimness of the sky and the earth, and the fog is powerfully removed, and a soft light is sprinkled. The depths of the soul trembled, and it was a shocking silence. The tyranny also disappeared in an instant, and the men slowly retreated in silence, leaving a mess.
The evil tide came silently and went silently, and the prince who was hidden behind the scenes to deceive people, like the twilight of the gods in the distant imagination, suddenly descended and disappeared mysteriously, leaving a terrifying legend of horror. In just a few words, he stirred up the suppressed secret emotions. In the end, the lie of the peaceful town was torn apart, and the undercurrent of repression broke through the harmonious rhythm.
In the 139-minute-long space, the screen scheduling is relaxed and the composition is clever. However, we are not happy, this film contains too many metaphors, some are too restrained and profound. So in the dim scene, we only see the pianist whispering into the radio microphone: ... some times are luckier than ours, the times of Pythagoras, Aristotle, their purity, A timbre instrument that plays only a few scales. For there is no doubt that they know that the harmony of heaven is the simplicity of the gods. Later, that alone was not enough. Unhinged arrogant, wishing to possess all harmony, the harmony of the gods, and to do it in his own way...
The harmony that had been maintained with all his might, under the agitation of the symbolic meaning of the prince, gave off a strange and harsh tone. With this ingenious shell of the whale, it is set off by a bizarre dissonance. The hero with a pure heart and full of curiosity desperately escapes from this sudden "eclipse", but is still engulfed by the darkness, becoming a deranged arrogant, the evil behind the scenes. All the ruins will eventually be rebuilt, but the unfortunate have been wiped out.
Some destroy, some compromise. The fog dissipated, and the mottled and broken body of the whale was lying on the square. As shown in the camera, it was just a whale, but the people gathered in the square were long gone.
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