Earlier this year, the UW Cinematheque began our programming for 2020 with a mammoth cinematic event: a screening of Béla Tarr's complete 7 1/2 hour Sátántangó. 

Beginning April 24, the Cinematheque, in partnership with Arbelos Films, will be providing an opportunity to view the same 4K restoration of Sátántangó at home! A $14.99 rental for a 72-hour streaming period is now available for pre-order here. 50% of the revenues collected from these rentals will directly support the Cinematheque. The Cinematheque recommends an afternoon/evening viewing session, with two intermissions. Intermissions are built into this streaming home version,  at the 2 hours and 17 minutes mark, and at the 4 hours and 21 minutes mark.

One of the greatest achievements in recent art house cinema and a seminal work of “slow cinema,” Sátántangó, based on the book by László Krasznahorkai, follows members of a small, defunct agricultural collective living in a post-apocalyptic landscape after the fall of Communism who, on the heels of a large financial windfall, set out to leave their village. As a few of the villagers secretly conspire to take off with all of the earnings for themselves, a mysterious character, long thought dead, returns to the village, altering the course of everyone’s lives forever.

Shot in stunning black-and-white by Gábor Medvigy and filled with exquisitely composed and lyrical long takes, Sátántangó unfolds in twelve distinct movements, alternating forwards and backwards in time, echoing the structure of a tango dance. Tarr’s vision, aided by longtime partner and collaborator Ágnes Hranitzky, is enthralling and his portrayal of a rural Hungary beset by boozy dance parties, treachery, and near-perpetual rainfall is both transfixing and uncompromising. Sátántangó has been justly lauded by critics and audiences as a masterpiece and inspired none other than Susan Sontag to proclaim that she would be “glad to see it every year for the rest of [her] life”.

Sátántangó is being restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative by Arbelos in collaboration with The Hungarian Filmlab.

To pre-order your rental of Sátántangó, visit the Arbelos/Vimeo page here:  https://vimeo.com/ondemand/satantangouwcinematheque. During this challenging period, we value your support for the Cinematheque and we look forward to being able to watch movies with you soon in the proper cinematic settings of 4070 Vilas Hall and the Chazen Museum of Art.

Please consider a donation to the Cinematheque's Friends of Film Fund. You'll find more information on donating here.