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Season 6, Episode 30 (#183):

The inexplicable Béla Tarr

with Lionel & Jim

Topics: The Turin Horse, Werckmesiter Harmonies, religion in post Soviet film

Thursday, May 21, 2026
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a close up of a horse with a man on a carriage behind its head

Well, we did it. After years of swearing off the films of Béla Tarr; a director recommended to us by Bob Loy, we bit the bullet and watched two of his films: Werckmeister Harmonies, and The Turin Horse. These are not easy films. We definitely felt like we were missing some major cultural context in these films, but did our best to process them through our unsophisticated American perspectives. As always, Lionel is very attuned to the sounds of the film. He mentioned a couple of sonic elements that I missed. We compare this to Stravinsky, Straczynski, and Stargate SG1. Go figure.

One note: the audio input of my mac seems to be all messed up, so I tried recording this episode with my AirPods, which was a mistake. I've done my best to equalize my voice, but the results are not what I would like.