Q:Build a movie plot around this: What kind of bar patrons are there? Drunken
A:
The film can be seen as an allegory of post-World War II Eastern European political systems - told as a black-and-white cinematic poem with 39 long, single-camera takes. It examines the brutalization of a society, its political systems and ethics through the metaphor of a decaying circus whale and its star performer. It is set in a desolate, isolated small town in Hungary during Soviet times.The film starts with Janos Valuska, a simple person, conducting a poem and dance with drunken bar patrons. The dance is of the total eclipse of the sun, which disturbs, then silences the animals. It finishes with the grand return of the warm sunlight.One of the significant reoccurring characters in this plot is the subtle transitions between light and darkness. The first appearance of this motif is a lamp in the bar, moving to a door into the darkness. The circus arrives like a Trojan Horse in the darkness of night. A window is opened as a glimmer of hope and dressed to shut out the world. The antagonist is only ever seen as a shadow.Janos' uncle Gyorgy is a composer, and therefore one of the intelligentsia. Gyorgy observes the imperfection and compromise of the musical scale (as defined by Andreas Werckmeister a historical theorist). Gyorgy proposes changes to the scale to make it more harmonious. This utopian approach to music represents a flawed, naive idealism that never can be achieved; it is not developed any further in the film or the book. It is just a statement indicating that human governance will always be flawed.Gyorgy's estranged wife tries to leverage her political and social status by giving Gyorgy a list of names to recruit for the "clean up the town movement" (with the blessing of the police chief).However, a stuffed smelly circus whale and its star performer, Prince, come to town in the silence and darkness of night. This is a metaphor for a bloated political system and the unseen Prince who represents the power of politically inspired, emotive dogma.Janos philosophizes about God and the...