Damnation (1988) review

The love triangle formula (two guys, one lady) gets dressed up (and down) with lovely tracking shots and rain and fog and muddy floors and rotting walls: it's Béla Tarr's world, and we're all decaying in it. Probably best seen as a warm-up to the formidable and masterful Sátántango, which was one of art-house cinema's most notorious pictures of the '90s: its length was precisely its key, as seven odd hours absorbing formally gorgeous black and white agony actually has an effect on the viewer's psyche - this, on the other hand, evokes barely a tinge. The lead character's descent into "insanity" is more of a plot device than something 'built up to' by the preceding events - women are whores, men are corrupt - although I can't help but love the image of a man - just after ratting out his peers to the police - with his coat caked with mud on all fours barking at a dog. "Damnation? What he needs is a va-cation." Ba-Dum-Tsh!