Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky are two of the most artistically thoughtful filmmakers of the 21st century. The Turin Horse and The Werckmeister Harmonies are two of their greatest cinematic achievements. A lesser known film of theirs, The Man From London, may on the surface lack some of the weightier themes of those films, but stylistically it is at least their equal.
The film features their trademark fluid, highly choreographed long take camera moves as well as the use of wide angle lenses throughout. But the use of high contrast images and extreme blacks may be the most visually apparent. The film is squarely in the noir tradition, but uses high contrast, extreme blacks, and silhouettes in particularly daring and compelling ways.
The movie opens with a long crane shot up the bow of a ship. The high contrast and centered framing makes the ship into an abstract shape (we don't where it came from or where its going).
The inky blackness on the right side of the frame is water. It lacks any texture, becoming a dark void. Early in the movie two criminals wrestle over a briefcase, and one falls to his death in the void.
The protagonist, Maloin, rescues the briefcase form the void, but it starts a chain of events that ends tragically.
The surviving criminal follows Maloin.
In one of the most exquisite scenes from the movie, Maloin comes home from his night shift with the briefcase and goes to bed (you can see the edge of the bed on the right of the door frame). The image is low contrast.
Maloin's wife enters to close the shutters to the window. Her black jacket creates high contrast with the glaring light through the window.
As she closes the shutters, the image shifts from being all white with a touch of black to all black with a touch of white.
Maloin's wife exits the room, blocking the window, and creating a natural fade to black.
The image goes dark, and stays dark for 20-30 seconds...
...And then suddenly cuts to a bright overhead light again the blackness.
Maloin in his tower. Black on white on black. The void surrounds him. The entire movie seems encompassed and bordered by this void.
Maloin looks down form his window on the criminal who has been following him in one of the movie's most classic noir shots.
Maloin takes some some money from a lockbox.
The same space. Maloin's absence is felt by the classic high contrast image.
Maloin's menacing black shape enters the shop where his daughter works, in hopes of ending her exploitation by the managers.
Mirroring the opening scene, the inspector from London recreates what. he thinks happened with the briefcase.
