"Werckmeister Harmonies"

I couldn't stop re-watching scenes from Bela Tarr's epic milepost of cinema, 2000's "Werckmeister Harmonies." On the original viewing, which I spread over two nights, I actually fast-forwarded through some scenes (there's a lot of walking and walking and walking), but despite rushing through it the first time I found myself going back the next day and studying a bunch of scenes (there are only 39 shots, some as long as 11 minutes, in the 140-minute film).

When the camerawork, the music and the heartbreaking message all come together, the experience can be transcendent. Here's one such scene:

Jonas views the whale.

And here's the end of a monologue that states the movie's theme as good as any, arguing that we have to undo the technical advances made by the 17th century musical theorist Andreas Werckmeister because they toyed with nature:

"Carefully, we have to correct Werckmeister's mistake. We have to concern ourselves with these seven notes of the scale, but not as of the octave, but seven distinct and independent qualities, like seven fraternal stars in the heavens. What we have to do, then, if we are aware, is that this natural tuning has its limits, and it is a somewhat worrisome limit that definitely excludes the use of certain higher signatures."