Film/ The Man From London

"The Man From London", a baleful and beauteous convergence of image, sound and meaning, is the latest masterpiece from the legendary Hungarian director Bela Tarr.

Extracting the "everyman" hidden in the improbable armature of a Georges Simenon detective thriller, Tarr reshapes character and tale into a modern and merciless slow-motion re-enactment of the ancient story of "The Flaying of Marsius"- the mortal presence reduced to a nameless night Watchman whose only claim against the gods will be the mere attempt to act and survive in a hostile and stifling world.

In mythic black and white- geometrical, spare and atmospherically gorgeous- Chance opens the story. Seeping darkness of night ebbs to reveal a tattered old boat; a waiting dockside train; two men; a heavy valise; a ruse more successful than clever; a struggle.

Still clutching the treasured case, one man falls and the sea dinks him in like a drop of ink. The other man stares into nothingness, then walks away, defeated- much too easily and probably not for the first time.

The Watchman sees it all from his cage-like station above dock and rail. Slow, methodical and intent on winning the prize that fate has flashed before him, he descends, grappling hook in hand, confident. Master of this tiny corner, he knows its ways and almost too easily retrieves the valise retreating to his perch. The haul is a shoal of shimmering small banknotes, which he lays out to dry on the old-fashioned stove heater. Not a fortune, it is just enough to be too much.

By morning, his shift over, he ambles down to the dockside cafe and then home. The other man follows, a vague intuition or desperate hope murmurs that there may be something to suspect, but ultimately neither the power nor a direction in which to proceed materialize.

Naturally, Apollo will not deign to show up at this claustrophobic dead-end sea town where even the vast horizon glares into an impassable barrier of blinding, empty whiteness. Enter the god's adjutant-accountant: the Inspector, nearly omniscient, the difference can be calculated in age and bother. He needs no knife to skin his victims, so thin is the worn down layer that life has allowed them.

At the cafe the other man from the night before, Brown- drawn in as if by magnetism- squirms under the Inspector's droning speech that, really, only the money is wanted. In fact, a percentage will be offered for the return of the bulk, no questions asked, no formal charges. We know the pinned man thinks the money is lost into the watery past and has no way to comply.

The prize has already begun its corrosive action: the Watchman flares in the shell of his marriage and rises to the opportunity of protecting his beloved daughter's dignity. He buys her a small cheap fur from the talking heads at the local shop. She knows better than to think of it as a sign on the road to a better or different destiny.

The women strain to comprehend the all too predictable actions of the men, and, why must it always come to this. Why is there so little range, so little opportunity to call forth and nurture whatever humble gifts they might posess?

The drowned man's body has washed ashore. Brown's wife has been summoned in an effort to lure him out of hiding. Even the Watchman is confronted: surely, at the least, he saw something the night of the crime?

The Watchman is in many ways the Inspector's equal and, like him, sees the puzzle taking shape. When his daughter unknowingly delivers the penultimate piece he reads the inverse treasure map and hurries to the spot that he suspects will mark his, and everyone's, defeat. Next, he will bring the valise of money to the Inspector and claim responsibility for all that has happened in the wake of the crime.

Ancient though he may be, the Inspector is a thoroughly modern man and reminds the Watchman that only the return of the money is of significance. Wasn't everything else. after all, just self-defense?

Completing his task the Inspector portions out a very few bills between two envelopes. With the leaden words of tumbled tombstones, he mouths his shock and sorrow at the course of events. As tokens of compensation to Brown's wife and the Watchman, he offers the envelopes, leaving them behind, as he daparts.