Sátántangó

Plot synopsis:
In a desolate village, after the collapse of a collective farm, Futaki (Miklós Székely B.) is having an affair with Mrs. Schmidt (Éva Almássy Albert), as he is awakened at dawn by the ringing of church bells, even though the nearest church had been destroyed long ago. Mr. Schmidt (László Lugossy) conspires with a group of co-workers to steal the villagers' money and flee to another part of the country. Futaki ambushes Schmidt and discovers his plans, after which he demands to become part of the scheme—all of this being watched by a lonely drunk man known as the Doctor (Peter Berling), who writes the events down in a notebook. However, the conspiracy is terminated when rumors spread across the village that the charismatic and manipulative Irimiás (Mihály Vig), a former co-worker who had been presumed dead, is returning. Meanwhile, Irimiás and his friend Petrina (Putyi Horváth) make a secret deal with a Captain somewhere else, involving their return to the village and manipulation of its community.
At the village, the Doctor discovers he has run out of fruit brandy. Unaccustomed to abandon his house for whatever reason, he decides to go out to buy liquor nonetheless. Outside, he is met with hostile weather and the arrival of the night. After purchasing his brandy, he is approached by Estike (Erika Bók), a young girl who desperately reaches out for his help. Behaving aggressively towards the child, the Doctor reconsiders and naively tries to apologize as the girl leaves and disappears in the darkness. After suffering a stroke, the Doctor collapses and is found in the morning by passing travelers who take him to a hospital.
The morning before the Doctor left his house, Estike is tricked by her brother, Sanyi (András Bodnár), into planting a "money tree" somewhere in the wasteland. She tortures and poisons her cat while being alone. After finding out she has been deceived by her brother and trying in vain to recover her money, she succumbs to silent despair. Dangerously marauding in the woods, the girl approaches the local bar, where most of the villagers (including her own mother) dance to Spanish music and tango unaware of the child's suffering and behavior. Afterwards, she encounters the Doctor and cries out for his help, after which she retreats into an abandoned ruin and poisons herself.
The following day, Irimiás arrives at the village while Estike's funeral is being held. Invaded by grief, Irimiás speaks to the villagers hatefully and convinces them of handing him the money of their proposed venture in order to start a new collective farm in another city. The villagers travel separately to a distant abandoned building, where they collapse from sleep and have intense nightmares. The day after, Irimiás tells the villagers that the plan to establish a new farm has been delayed and that their only hope of establishing a farm is to scatter around the country for an unspecified amount of time. Schmidt and Kráner (János Derzsi) threaten Irimiás with a knife and demand that he returns their money. Irimiás agrees in a manipulative way, and the villagers give their money back to him in shame. It is then revealed that Irimiás plans to murder the villagers with explosives, although it is never shown. As they travel in a truck to the city, each of the villagers is assigned a different task by him and dismissed, except for Futaki, who tells Irimiás that he would rather get a job as a watchman, and leaves on his own.
The military officials receive Irimiás' letters detailing the villagers' descriptions, abilities and defects. Assuming their superior is likely to find them offensive and unprofessional, the officials decide to re-write them in a more polite and objective way, after which they retreat, showing no empathy for Irimiás' proposed fate for the villagers.
The Doctor returns home several weeks later, unaware that Irimiás had taken the entire community with him. As he sits down to write some notes, the same bells that woke Futaki up start ringing. The Doctor decides to leave his house once more to investigate the desolate and faraway place where the church once stood. Instead, he discovers a madman in the middle of ruins desperately ringing the bells and shouting nonsensical phrases. Frightened, the Doctor returns home, muttering nihilistic thoughts. The bells keep on ringing as he covers his windows, completely submerging himself in darkness.

Tags: cult

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