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SÁTÁNTANGÓ | AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center Béla Tarr’s 1994 masterpiece immerses viewers in the darkest, dankest, grimmest and most godforsaken of worlds — a derelict Hungarian village, its inhabitants adrift after the fall of Communism and the dissolution of their farming collective. The film is truly uncompromising in its cinematic vision: black-and-white cinematography, long takes and slowly paced (indeed, the film is a foundational text for what came to be called “slow cinema”) but sharply realized scenes sprawling across an epic seven-plus hours of screen time. But SÁTÁNTANGÓ is utterly transfixing and pulses with the force of life despite the degradation on display. In this desolate, depopulated village of desperate chancers and dead-enders, a mysterious man named Irimiás (Mihály Víg, who also composed the film’s haunting score), long thought dead, suddenly returns. He castigates the people for their shortcomings and sinful ways, while convincing them to invest what little money they have with him, to start a new collective farm nearby. Is the charismatic Irimiás a prophet, a charlatan or something even more sinister? The film is based on the debut novel by László Krasznahorkai, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature last year “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.” DIR/SCR Béla Tarr; SCR László Krasznahorkai, from his own novel; PROD György Fehér, Joachim von Vietinghoff, Ruth Waldburger. Hungary/Germany/Switzerland, 1994, b&w, 439 min., plus two 15-min. intermissions. In Hungarian with English subtitles. NOT RATED In Memoriam: Béla Tarr (1955–2026) SÁTÁNTANGÓ has been restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative by Arbelos in collaboration with the Hungarian Filmlab. SÁTÁNTANGÓ will be presented as follows: Chapters 1–3 (138 min.), Intermission (15 min.), Chapters 4–6 (125 min.), Intermission (15 min.), Chapters 7–12 (178 min.) https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100005532/