Rent The Man from London (2007)

Powerful images but flawed. - The Man from London review by RM

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.

Great photography, but overlong, obscure and dull - The Man from London review by AL

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.

Ciao Béla. - The Man from London review by Steve

It's the one where Béla Tarr unwinds and makes a thriller based on a story by Georges Simenon! Well, it may be as mainstream as the legendary Hungarian auteur ever got, but it's still shot with his own idiosyncratic approach, so it's an exotic experience for novices.

There are the ultra-slow tracking shots, the rattle and clang of industrial noise and the absurd/grotesque characterisations. This is based on a popular novel, and maybe even a tribute to film noir. Yet like all Béla's oeuvre, it is unique, beautiful, and utterly strange

It retains the bare bones of Simenon's plot, but slowed right down. A signalman (Miroslav Krobot) at a dismal French port pulls a suitcase full of money out of the harbour. And then he's investigated by an elegant but elderly English detective of uncertain authority.

And so the director fills out the lengthy running time with artistic, high contrast b&w photography including the ominous/looming blocks of darkness... It probably lacks the complexity and profundity of Tarr's other films but is still a compelling curiosity for the initiated.