Watching this film is an endurance test. It could have been a masterpiece as the photography is superb in places but long dragged out shots and some arty farty scenes spoil the plot. Simenon who created Maigret wrote some down beat crime novels and this is one of them but the director has got carried away with the film noir style which overpowers the characters who seem detached from the events. Overlong frozen camera shots of gloomy faces, with a monotonous soundtrack take the edge off the film. The run time is wrongly indicated here it is 134 min not 90.
Watching this film felt like shuffling in shackles through an exhibition of exceptionally fine monochrome photographs arranged in a vague narrative sequence, while a large animal issued an interminable cry of pain from the bottom of a well nearby. The overwhelming sensation upon the arrival of the final credits was one of relief.
About as mainstream as the great Hungarian director ever got. Tarr's characteristic slow moving camera, the repetitive industrial rattle and clang and absurd characterisations are all intact. But this is a thriller from a Simenon story. Like all Tarr's work, unique, beautiful, and utterly strange.