György Fehér's Twilight

Twilight (Szürkület, 1990, György Fehér)

Courtesy: Arbelos Films

György Fehér's Twilight looks and feels like Béla Tarr's Damnation. Twilight's black and white visuals, bleak surroundings, creative & measured camera movements, pace of proceedings, rain and the presence of dogs recalls Tarr's extraordinary film. This visual similarity is fascinating especially since the source material for Twilight is the 1958 feature It Happened in Broad Daylight written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. This indicates that a visual framework can be reproduced even though the source material is different.

Courtesy: Arbelos Films

Twilight was released two years after Béla Tarr's Damnation(1988) which makes it easy to conclude that Tarr's visual style influenced György Fehér. However, these words by László Nemes give pause:

György Fehér, who was Béla Tarr’s mentor. Even though he’s at the heart of Béla Tarr’s work — and had a major influence on Bela’s stylistic shift in the ’80s — he has always remained in the shadows. He made two films, Szürkület and Szenvedély. They are incredible films, masterpieces. -- Filmmaker Magazine, Shevaun Mizrahi

Twilight, Courtesy Arbelos Films

Like the investigation at the heart of Twilight, it feels like the case of who influenced whom must be investigated further.