5. WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES
 
Hungary
dir. Béla Tarr
world premiere 2000
U.S. release 2001
 

 
Because Tarr perseveres in believing that a film can have the scope, the daring grammars, the seriousness, and the compelling inscrutability of a great modernist novel, and though he fulfills all of those ambitions with power and finesse, it still feels like a "people's" movie: accessible, funny, tuned in to common questions and angers.