A bunch of yokels drunkenly staggering about each other
That's the point. Not all great movie openings have to be some grand display of cosmic significance set to the sounds of "Also Sprach Zarathustratra" (although I did like that opening too). Here I like the fact that Tarr took a group of completely completely awkward, clumsy, squalid, smelly drunks and used them to create an allegory about existence and our place in it.
The beauty is in the way Janos seems oblivious to the catastrophe and sinks into his own imaginative world, conducting the spectacle as if it's a grand symphony. The irony (and foreshadowing) is absolutely perfect.
Along the same lines is the opening of Catch-22 which begins with a majestic sunrise brutally punctuated by the ugly cacophany of life & the sounds of airplane engines coughing & wheezing into action. That one's a little more blatant but effective just the same.
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Well it does score some points for originality; guess it just didn´t get me all giddy with joy as seems to be the case with a few others here. Also, like many other scenes, it sort of wore out its welcome a bit (with Tarr, this long shot thing seems to be more like a systematic fetish. Doesn´t always work).
I was giddy with joy when I saw the opening. there was such a sincerity as those men moved about circumscribing the solar system. It was true unabashed man dancing that only exist when men are comfortable with each other. This only makes the riot scenes that more frustrating. One man can incite horrible violence and another can create beauty in men.
The Turin Horse, The Fall, Antichrist, Manhattan, Werckmeister Harmonies, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, The Sacrifice, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Trainspotting, Inglorious Basterds, and There Will Be Blood have the greatest opening scenes in my opinion.
I'm going to find it and I'm going to destroy it. I don't know how yet. Possibly with dynamite.