This is as challenging as movies come, alluding to everything from philosopher Thomas Hobbes to the history of Western music.
100
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
An indelible statement on loneliness and spiritual thirst.
100
New York PostV.A. Musetto
New York PostV.A. Musetto
While Tarr's newest epic, Werckmeister Harmonies, isn't intended for the shopping-mall crowd, it is more viewer-friendly and will please adventurous moviegoers.
90
VarietyDerek Elley
VarietyDerek Elley
A stunning feature -- another hypnotic meditation on popular demagogy and mental manipulation.
Mysterious, poetic and allusive, The Werckmeister Harmonies beckons filmgoers who complain of the vapidity of Hollywood movie making and yearn for a film to ponder and debate.
The film could easily be reduced to a parable of post-Communist Eastern Europe, but the allegory digs deeper into the very order of things, exemplified by 17th-century musicologist Andreas Werckmeister's arbitrary imposition of a "tempered" tonal system over naturally occurring tunings.