Journey on the Plain

An unhurried journey through the Hungarian wilderness - and in color, which is certainly surprising for Tarr. On a scorching hot summer's day, composer Mihály Vig - a frequent collaborator of the director's - plays the role of a lone wanderer reciting sorrowful verses by 19th-century poet Sándor Petőfi. Vig, like the characters in Satantango, traverses the endless steppe, visits roadside pubs and seeks shade in abandoned, crumbling buildings. Invariably with melancholy words on his sun-parched lips. (New Horizons International Film Festival)