How do you respond to the fact that your films are often seen as metaphysical?
We don’t think about metaphysics or any philosophical speculation because a film is concrete. We use a camera and shoot scenes. If you are a writer you have paper and can write a lot of things about this table. But if you are a film-maker you can just show this table. You can see immediately the kind of table and how interesting it is, but it is still only a table. That is the reason why I don’t understand someone talking about philosophical or metaphysical things. No, it’s not true. Please, just watch the movie; just listen to your heart. Please, trust your eyes: everything is very clear and very simple. Watch. That’s important. Don’t think about it too much. Everyone can understand it if they don’t complicate it. It’s just a simple film. It’s a very primitive language. Our writer, Krasznahorkai, he doesn’t understand why we use this very primitive thing which is a film. He can write thirty pages about this table. Everybody has a fantasy and everybody can imagine a table, but if I show you it using the very primitive language of film it is only ever a table.
Kinoeye | Hungarian film: Bela Tarr interviewed
Posted 6 months ago
