Overview
In a world drenched in despair, a man's obsession with a haunting singer leads him down a dark path of desperation and solitude.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Glacial
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- brooding
- austere
- melancholic
- serious arthouse viewing
- rainy day
What critics said
Critics broadly regard Damnation as a major Béla Tarr work, praising its hypnotic formal control, magnificent black-and-white imagery, and ability to make social desolation compulsively watchable.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Béla Tarr builds the film around prolonged, drifting shots and repetitive movement through rain-soaked spaces.
Persistent rain, mud, fog, umbrellas, and drab environments turn the setting into an expression of Karrer's hopelessness.
Karrer clings to the married singer as his principal defense against solitude, while attempting to manipulate her husband's absence.
The town's petrified social environment, debt, marginal work, and pervasive hopelessness evoke late-socialist Eastern European immobility.
Films like Damnation, and why
The Turin Horse
shared slow cinema, existential isolation, bleak rural atmosphere, and formally rigorous long-take aesthetic
Stalker
shared austere black-and-white imagery, spiritual desolation, rain-soaked atmosphere, and contemplative pacing
The Passenger
shared alienated outsiders, oppressive urban landscapes, existential despair, and stark modernist visual style
Werckmeister Harmonies
shared melancholic obsession, social paralysis, and bleak Eastern European atmosphere
Movie Details
- Director
- Béla Tarr
- Release Date
- 1988-10-20
- Runtime
- 116 min
- Rating
- 7.7 / 10 (156)
Cast
- Székely B. Miklós
- György Cserhalmi
- Vali Kerekes
- Gyula Pauer
- Hédi Temessy
- Gábor Balogh
- János Balogh
- Péter Breznyik Berg
- Imre Chmelik
- János Gémes
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- Eternal Family
- Rent
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store
- Buy
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is Damnation about?
- A lonely Hungarian outsider pursues a married bar singer through a rain-drowned world of obsession, betrayal, and existential defeat.
- What is Damnation like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Damnation as glacial, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Damnation violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in Damnation as mild.
- What did critics think of Damnation?
- Critics broadly regard Damnation as a major Béla Tarr work, praising its hypnotic formal control, magnificent black-and-white imagery, and ability to make social desolation compulsively watchable.
- Which films are like Damnation?
- Films with a similar feel include The Turin Horse, Stalker, The Passenger, and Werckmeister Harmonies.
- How long is Damnation?
- Damnation runs 116 minutes.
- Where can I watch Damnation?
- In United States, Damnation streams on Eternal Family.
